============================================================ Health Options Digest August 18, 2002 Coalition for Health Options In Central Eugene-Springfield ============================================================ * EDITOR'S LETTER * NEWS SUMMARY * PEACEHEALTH'S PLANS 1.rg - Plans wed buildings to beauty 2.sn - PeaceHealth draft master plan offers a visual of the proposed hospital 3.rg - Hospital rival calls PeaceHealth plans monopolistic move 4.sn - Local hospital's dispute growing 5.sn - Bill Morrisette: Keep urban village concept in plan 5.rg - Bill Morrisette: PeaceHealth plan lacks key element 6.rg - Retro health care? * BELTLINE/I-5 7.sn - OTC denies $17 million more for I-5/Beltline project 8.sn - I-5/Beltline stakeholders agree to one last try * TRAUMA STATUS 9.rg - Hospital lowers trauma status 10.sn - Local hospital trauma center drops a level 11.rg - Officials eye impact of trauma downgrade * OTHER NEWS 12.rg - PeaceHealth to close clinic, move internists 13.rg - Annexation for urban village gets OK 14.rg - Chickens and eggs 15.rg - Hospital, nurses set tentative contract 16.rg - PeaceHealth sued over building lease * KEY, CREDITS, MORE INFO ===================== EDITOR'S LETTER ==================== There's lots of news to report, but summer activities have made it difficult for us to get the news to you. Moreover, Eugene Free Network, which hosts out email list, has installed new anti-spam software, which appears to think "Health Options Digest" is spam. But we are trying to catch up on the news, and have made a few changes to "Health Options Digest" which we hope you will appreciate. First, major news and commentary is now organized by topic so that realted stories are together. For example, this issue has sections on PeaceHealth's plans, Beltline/I-5 and the trauma status of McKenzie-Willamette. Second, we are eliminated the "Contacts" and "Links" sections. But you can still find this info on our web site: http://www.efn.org/~choices Third, we separated out the "News Summary" from the "Letter's Editor." Lastly, we are trying to inject a bit more of our own views into "Health Options Digest." While we still reproduce without bias all available stories related to health options for our community, we will now strive to help you more by telling you what we think these stories mean and how they relate to each other. Look for our views in the "Editor's Letter" and "News Summary" sections. We'd love to hear what you think about Health Options Digest. Please drop me a line... Rob Zako, Editor 343-5201 rzako@efn.org ====================== NEWS SUMMARY ====================== The big recent news -- now old news -- is that PeaceHealth officials unveiled plans on Monday, August 6, for a regional medical complex that features office buildings, homes and a nine-story brick hospital along the tree-lined banks of the McKenzie River (#1, #2). PeaceHealth also submitted two plan applications to the City of Springfield: requests to amend the Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Area Plan map and the Gateway Refinement Plan text to allow the hospital and related medical uses. The entire 160-acre property is now zoned for medium-density residential housing. CHOICES's legal counsel is in the process of reviewing the plan amendments. Reaction to the plans was swift and critical (#3, #4, #5, #6). Down the road from where PeaceHealth hopes to build a new hospital, the Beltline/I-5 failed to receive another $17 million in funding from the state (#7). The stakeholders group working on the Beltline/I-5 project are not happy with any of the options for rebuilding the interchange and nearby intersection with Gateway, but have agreed to meet again to try to find a satsfactory option (#9). Of course, improving the Beltline/I-5 interchange is critical to PeaceHealth's plans to build a new hospital, which would likely generate lots of new traffic at the interchange. (We hear that PeaceHealth's traffic consultant told the Oregon Transportation Commission that a new hospital would not create any significant new traffic, which the transportation commissioners found impossible to believe.) McKenzie-Willamette is downgrading from a Level II to a Level III trauma center because neurosurgeons want to consolidate trauma cases that require brain surgery at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene (#9, #10). Dr. Bill Long, chairman of the State Trauma Advisory Board, noted the larger issue: How all the hospitals' services will change if Sacred Heart Medical Center is approved for relocation to Springfield, about 2 1/2 miles from McKenzie-Willamette's door. "By them getting closer together, it destabilizes the uniqueness of each institution," Long said. "They're going to have to sit down and sort it out -- who's going to cover what, and what is the economic viability of two hospitals sitting side-by-side in a relatively small community?" (#11) We agree wholeheartedly! In other news, PeaceHealth Medical Group has notified about 5,000 patients that its internal medicine clinic across the street from Sacred Heart Medical Center will close in October, and the doctors there will be assigned to other clinics in Eugene (#12). The Lane County Local Government Boundary Commission unanimously approved the annexation to the City of Springfield of 13 acres owned by Arlie & Co. The property is west of Baldy View Drive and north of PeaceHealth's 161-acre RiverBend site and is planned for an "urban village" (#13). The City of Sprongfield has been hoping to sign an agreement with Eugene businesswoman Carolyn Chambers to buy a 22-acre site along Interstate 5 in the Gateway area. The city's plan for its new sports center at 32nd and Main streets hinges on the deal (#14). PeaceHealth and the Oregon Nurses Association have reached a tentative agreement on a new two-year labor contract for the 1,000 registered nurses working at Sacred Heart Medical Center (#15). Steve DePalma, a Eugene-based real estate developer, on Thursday sued PeaceHealth in Lane County Circuit Court, saying the health-care organization in late 2000 reneged on a deal to lease part of his 22,700-square-foot office building off Centennial Boulevard in Eugene (#16). =================== PEACEHEALTH'S PLANS ================== ------------------------------------------------------------ 1.rg - Plans wed buildings to beauty: RiverBend hospital campus to include office buildings and homes ------------------------------------------------------------ By Matt Cooper and Tim Christie The Register-Guard, 8/6/02, Page 1A Springfield -- PeaceHealth officials unveiled plans Monday for a regional medical complex that features office buildings, homes and a nine-story brick hospital along the tree-lined banks of the McKenzie River. The Bellevue-based health organization submitted to the city a proposed layout for the $350 million hospital -- dubbed Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend -- and adjoining medical, business, retail and residential buildings on 160 acres in the Gateway area of northwest Springfield. City planners will now begin a sweeping, in-house review during the next 50 to 60 days to determine relevant issues such as transportation and the environment, planner Colin Stephens said. PeaceHealth will try to address those issues before submittal of a master plan, which officials hope could be completed and adopted by early next year, said Alan Yordy, PeaceHealth's chief executive in Oregon. That would clear the way for a 30-month building phase by Turner Construction of New York City -- builders of the Seattle Seahawks' new stadium -- and a planned opening in early 2007. Between now and then, "we expect there's going to be a fair amount of dialogue," Yordy said. "This is the beginning of the formal application process." The hospital, which PeaceHealth officials say is needed to meet the region's health care needs for the next 100 years, would contain about 1 million square feet, comparable to the current campus on Hilyard Street in downtown Eugene. All told, the application calls for construction on about 120 acres during the next 15 years, but Yordy said much of the natural landscape -- including stands of Douglas fir and maple trees -- will be preserved. The look and feel PeaceHealth is trying to create on the RiverBend site more resembles a university campus than a sterile hospital facility, with brick buildings, meandering pathways, prominent use of natural materials, water features, gardens, and lots of open space. The idea is to create what Yordy called "a healing environment" -- a peaceful, quiet setting that helps patients get well. "What we're trying to create is an environment that reflects on the natural environment of the site so that there's a real marriage of the buildings and the natural beauty," Yordy said. That natural beauty includes the McKenzie River, but Yordy said flooding isn't a concern because the hospital would be built about 500 feet from the bank and above the predicted waterline for even the most catastrophic event -- that is, a flood that occurs just once in 500 years. Underground parking for 600 cars also would collect floodwater, keeping it from spreading to the hospital itself. Likewise, Yordy said, neighbors won't be flooded by runoff from the hospital because swales will collect stormwater and deposit it in an on-site pond. Yordy rejected arguments from land use watchdogs who've maintained that moving the regional hospital from downtown Eugene to the outskirts of Springfield contributes to urban sprawl and transportation woes. Yordy said the project won't impact what he called the area's critical transportation projects -- the Gateway Street/Belt Line Road intersection and traffic northbound on Interstate 5 moving west on Belt Line. The planned extension of Pioneer Parkway and a high-speed bus route will ease pressure on Belt Line by opening a new route to the hospital from Interstate 105, he said. Although the property has long been planned for medium-density residential housing, Yordy said Springfield code includes medical services as an acceptable use. Last week, the hospital submitted applications to change portions of the site to allow commercial zoning, planner Stephens said. Public hearings will follow in October and November. A rezoning for the hospital would likely accompany the submittal of the master plan, Stephens added. Yordy noted that a well-designed hospital would feature amenities that wouldn't necessarily be included by a developer who wants to maximize use of land for profit. PeaceHealth, for example, plans park-like grounds and riverine paths that encircle the property, he said. "This is going to develop, one way or another," Yordy said. But "this will be an integral part of Bus Rapid Transit. This will be a (community village) of sorts. It takes advantage of all modes of transportation and has some elements of being self-contained -- you could live and work and use Bus Rapid Transit to get groceries, to go to Gateway Mall and restaurants, all in a five- or six-block area." Describing the site as the kind of place that "people marvel over," Yordy said the main building and medical office buildings would be built of brick and stone and topped by peaked roof lines. A small nondenominational chapel may be built in the woods. A pond, part of the site's storm drainage system, will greet visitors at the front of campus. Up to five medical and commercial office buildings will be built on the west side of the site by Game Farm Road, with the timing dependent on demand, Yordy said. The site will also include two areas of housing totaling about 800 units: on the south side, a small cluster of senior housing, ranging from independent rental units to skilled nursing care; on the northeast side, a 35-acre residential district, featuring condominiums, townhouses or apartments. PeaceHealth may build the residential districts with a private developer, or it may sell them to a developer who agrees to certain design principles, Yordy said. The new hospital will replace Sacred Heart Medical Center, which occupies four blocks west of the University of Oregon. "If we do this right as a community," Yordy said, "this will be a place that people from all over the country come to look at." NEW HOSPITAL Highlights of the preliminary master plan: Name: Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend; the existing hospital will be called Sacred Heart Medical Center at Hilyard. Number of beds: About 500 to start, with ability to expand to 700. (Sacred Heart has 432 beds.) If demand grows beyond 800 beds, PeaceHealth may build a separate specialty hospital with 100 to 150 beds. Cost: $350 million budget for the building project; $34 million paid to Arlie & Co., a Springfield land development company, for the property last year. Timeline: Site work next summer; construction in 2004. Construction expected to take 30 months, ending early January 2007. PeaceHealth plans to open in the first quarter of 2007. HOSPITAL HIGHLIGHTS More highlights of the preliminary master plan: Square footage: Main building will have 800,000 square feet and be eight to nine stories at its highest point. Attached wings on either end will house specialty institutes, one for cardiovascular care and one for women's and children's health. Each institute will be 100,000 square feet to start and can be expanded to 200,000 square feet each. Site plan: PeaceHealth plans to build on about 120 acres of the 160-acre site. When built out over 15 years, the site will include the main hospital building, medical and commercial office buildings, about 2,000 parking spaces built underground, above ground and ground level, a 15,000-square-foot conference center, a small chapel in the woods and about 800 housing units, including senior housing, condominiums, and townhouses and/or apartments. Campus will include open space, stands of firs and maples, a pond and a walking path circumnavigating the site. Hilyard campus: The existing Sacred Heart Medical Center will be converted into a 24-hour urgent care clinic, expanded mental health center and offices. That project, to cost $50 million, will take place when the new hospital opens. (end) http://www.registerguard.com/news/2002/08/06/1a.peacehealth.0806.html Artist's Rendering of Pioneer Parkway view: http://www.peacehealth.org/Community/owv/News/ArtRender_RiverBend1_L_o.jpg Artist's Rendering of entrance to new Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend: http://www.peacehealth.org/Community/owv/News/ArtRender_RiverBend2_L_o.jpg RiverBend Site Plan (PDF document): http://www.peacehealth.org/Community/owv/News/a1-3.pdf Artist's Rendering of Site Plan (PDF document): http://www.peacehealth.org/Community/owv/News/a1-4.pdf ------------------------------------------------------------ 2.sn - PeaceHealth draft master plan offers a visual of the proposed hospital ------------------------------------------------------------ By Tim Shinabarger The Springfield News, 8/7/02 A 1 million-square-foot brick-walled hospital 175 feet tall is the centerpiece of the draft master plan PeaceHealth submitted to city officials Monday. The plan shows the proposed new regional hospital next to the Douglas fir grove at the southeast side of PeaceHealth's 160-acre site near the McKenzie River. The draft plan shows the hospital, related medical and non-medical buildings and the layout of the proposed Pioneer Parkway extension along with a street network to serve the area between Game Farm Road and the river. Shown on the draft master plan: * The 800,000-square-foot main hospital building connected to two buildings, an Oregon Cardiovascular Institute and a Women's and Children's Institute for medicine. * Two other hospital buildings including one overlooking the river. * Five mixed-use medical office/retail buildings. * Two parking structures. * At least eight big housing structures. * Open space near the McKenzie River at the northeast end of the property. The plan shows the potential build-out of the property over the next 15 years, PeaceHealth Oregon Region spokesman Brian Terrett said Tuesday. "In 2007, the only thing there will be the hospital and the two institutions that are connected to the hospital," Terrett said. The hospital will be eight or nine stories tall, he said. The medical office/retail buildings will be built only if there's a demand for them, Terrett said. They would be three-stories high, with retail and commercial uses such as restaurants, florists, dry-cleaners or small groceries on the first floor and offices on the upper floors, he said. Parking structures will be two-level structures, he said. Additional parking will be underneath the hospital itself, he said. The project includes 800 units of housing in row houses, townhouses and condominiums, he said. "It's not going to be built by us," Terrett said. "It would be built by somebody who's willing to partner and do that kind of development ... in such a way that it will fit the theme that we're trying to reach of a healing environment in a beautiful setting." With that emphasis in mind, the hospital design includes natural swales, green space, buildings made from natural materials instead of steel and glass, smooth roof lines and rooftop gardens on some levels of the hospital roof, he said. The four-color draft almost looks like a puzzle with two pieces missing: one where Arlie & Co. owns 12 acres between the PeaceHealth land and the corner of Deadmond Ferry Road and Baldy View Lane; and one where Sycan B Corp.'s offices stand beside several private residences east of Baldy View Lane. The draft master plan shows a major street connection on the Arlie property. The Eugene-based Arlie & Co. had no involvement in designing the plan and the street system is designed to function whether traffic flows through the Arlie property or not, Terrett said. PeaceHealth purchased the 160-acre site from Arlie & Co. on Dec. 31. The hospital organization has no plans to buy the 12-acre Arlie property, Terrett said. PeaceHealth is in the process of buying one private residence slightly more than one acre in size near Sycan B's office, he said. With the draft master plan, PeaceHealth has provided the most visual depiction yet of what the hospital property might look like, Springfield planner Colin Stephens said Tuesday. City staff will run the draft through the development review process just as if it's a full-scale application, he said. That process will probably take 50 or 60 days, he said. After that, he will draft a report back to the property owner. That helps the property owner to know how the city is going to respond to its final master plan, he said. PeaceHealth also submitted two plan applications to the city last week: requests to amend the Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Area Plan map and the Gateway Refinement Plan text to allow the hospital and related medical uses. The entire 160-acre property is now zoned for medium-density residential housing. The Springfield Planning Commission and City Council must hold public hearings and approve the amendment requests, Stephens said. Those hearings will probably be in October and November, he said. The Metro Plan amendment won't need the approval of Eugene and Lane County officials, he said. "The way the development code and the Metro Plan are structured, those are home city decisions," Stephens said. The city has to approve the amendments before PeaceHealth can submit its final master plan, he said. After city staff and members of the public comment on the draft, PeaceHealth will submit a final master plan to the city this fall, Terrett said. (end) http://springfieldnews.com/2002/news0807/frontpage/sn_frontpage-02.htm ------------------------------------------------------------ 3.rg - Hospital rival calls PeaceHealth plans monopolistic move ------------------------------------------------------------ By Matt Cooper The Register-Guard, 8/7/02, Page 1A Springfield -- The chief executive officer for McKenzie-Willamette Hospital said Tuesday that PeaceHealth's plans for a huge new medical center in northwest Springfield exemplify the health giant's intent to monopolize the market. Roy Orr asserted that the 160-acre development proposal PeaceHealth submitted to city officials Monday was done without consideration for his nonprofit community hospital's future. "Their direction is toward dominating and owning this market," he said. "It completely ignores McKenzie-Willamette's role in this marketplace." Orr's comments reflected the continuing dispute over the two hospitals' respective roles in providing future health care services in the Eugene-Springfield area and beyond. Chief Executive Officer Alan Yordy, who unveiled plans for the new hospital Monday, brushed aside Orr's assertion that PeaceHealth is seeking to develop a health care monopoly in the region. "We've said many times that our goal, our hope, our wish, our desire, is to have direct, face-to-face dialogue with McKenzie-Willamette about how these two organizations work together in the long haul," he said. McKenzie-Willamette has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Bellevue, Wash.-based PeaceHealth, which operates five hospitals in the Northwest, including 432-bed Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene. McKenzie-Willamette has 114 beds. A trial is expected next year on McKenzie-Willamette's claim that PeaceHealth has used its dominant market power to compete unfairly for exclusive health insurance contracts. Orr said Tuesday it was "unrealistic" to meet with PeaceHealth officials in light of the lawsuit and that residents should be concerned about "our failure to jointly plan for the health care needs of this community." Yordy said he's looking forward to meeting with Orr to discuss programs the two hospitals can share once the litigation has been resolved. PeaceHealth's plans call for building a nine-story hospital complex costing $350 million and totaling 1 million square feet -- bigger than Valley River Center. It will rise along the McKenzie River, be called Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend and open by the spring of 2007. Construction will cover about 120 acres over the next 15 years and include adjoining medical, business, retail and residential buildings, as well as gardens and open space. Bonnie Ullmann, a member of Game Farm Neighbors, the neighborhood group that includes people living next to the hospital site, complained Tuesday that there had been no neighborhood input sought on PeaceHealth's plans since spring. "We would love to feel reassured that our property values aren't going to plummet, that our neighborhood's not going to be unlivable when they're done," she said. "Nobody's come to us and made us feel better about it yet." Other Eugene-Springfield residents and land-use watchdogs, contacted by a reporter Tuesday, reiterated that they want PeaceHealth to slow down its planning process and listen to community concerns about potential urban sprawl, traffic congestion and flooding at and around the Springfield site. Rob Zako, member of the Eugene-based group CHOICES, which wants to preserve a two-hospital community, urged PeaceHealth officials to "step back and work with the community" to find a site for their new hospital that's more acceptable to critics. Jacob Brostoff, transportation advocate for 1000 Friends of Oregon, a land-use planning advocacy group, said relocating PeaceHealth's primary hospital from downtown Eugene to Springfield's northwest corner will inevitably create pressure to expand the area's urban growth boundary, prompting more sprawl. Yordy said all those concerns can be addressed during the public approval process that will come after the city responds to Monday's proposal and PeaceHealth submits a master plan for the complex later this year or early next year. "The community will have to decide if they want to approve this," he said. "And we will all only know for sure if this is the right thing once we get down the road a few years and say, 'Boy, this is a great resource' or 'Maybe we should have done some things differently.' " Among other comments Tuesday, Orr questioned the propriety of PeaceHealth, as a partially tax-exempt organization, developing parts of the Springfield site for nonmedical uses. "I can't imagine private developers wanting to see an organization use untaxed dollars to acquire huge parcels of land and compete with them," he said. Yordy said being able to develop land adjacent to the hospital grounds will provide a crucial source of revenue for PeaceHealth that it will need to be able to provide a full range of health care services. Orr also repeated other concerns expressed previously, including that a regional medical center close to McKenzie-Willamette could reduce the number of emergency trips to the smaller hospital and thus negatively impact its revenue stream. He also suggested that PeaceHealth's plans for building medical offices in the vicinity of its new hospital could similarly siphon off McKenzie-Willamette's supply of physicians. Yordy responded that the region's growth means there will be enough emergency demand for both hospitals. And he questioned the likelihood that PeaceHealth would draw physicians away from McKenzie-Willamette, noting that some doctors groups in the area have declined to join with either hospital. (end) http://www.registerguard.com/news/2002/08/07/1a.peacehealth.0807.html ------------------------------------------------------------ 4.sn - Local hospital's dispute growing ------------------------------------------------------------ By Tim Shinabarger The Springfield News, 8/10/02 The spokeswoman for McKenzie- Willamette Hospital says Peace Health's new plan for its proposed hospital shows PeaceHealth intends to "dominate" local health care and put McKenzie out of business. McKenzie spokeswoman Rosie Pryor said Thursday the plans and the way PeaceHealth developed them are "confirmation of PeaceHealth's determination to dominate this market." PeaceHealth spokesman Brian Terrett said Friday the allegations are unfounded. "We're just simply trying to build a hospital that meets the needs of the community for years to come," Terrett said. "We're not trying to drive anybody out of business. We've been very clear about that." PeaceHealth submitted a draft master plan for a one-million-square-foot, eight-story hospital on its 160-acre RiverBend property in Gateway to the city Monday. Components of the plan indicate PeaceHealth wants to build a 1,000-bed hospital, Pryor said. She said it's "regrettable" that McKenzie-Willamette is relegated to reading about PeaceHealth's plans in the newspaper and said it's hard to reconcile that with PeaceHealth statements about how important McKenzie is in the local health-care picture. It's not in the best interests of Lane County residents that PeaceHealth's "elaborate planning" is going on without input from the health-care community or the community at large, she said. She also said it's inconsistent for PeaceHealth to use its tax-exempt status to "compete with private developers" for housing and commercial development on its 160-acre site. "We don't use tax-exempt dollars to go nose-to-nose with the development community," Pryor said. "Our tax-exempt dollars go to health care, not developing real estate." Terrett said, "Our years of working cooperatively to try to address the health-care needs of the community speak for themselves. We're ready to sit down at any time with McKenzie-Willamette and address the needs of the community. The truth of the matter is, this community needs both hospitals." PeaceHealth's plans for the proposed new hospital call for 470 beds when it opens in 2007, he said. "It wasn't a year ago that Roy Orr (McKenzie's chief executive officer) was standing in front of community groups telling them McKenzie-Willamette has to expand because they're running out of room," Terrett said. The community is experiencing an unprecedented demand for health care, he said. PeaceHealth's tax-exempt status won't extend to development on its property, he said. "Any development there will be done by private developers that live in the community," Terrett said. It wasn't possible to consult with McKenzie for input about the plans for the proposed hospital campus, he said. "The challenge we have right now is that McKenzie has filed a lawsuit against us and that severely limits the dialog we can have," he said. In January, McKenzie-Willamette filed an anti-trust lawsuit alleging PeaceHealth used coercion to force insurance provider Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield to exclude McKenzie from its preferred provider list. Regence lists PeaceHealth as a preferred provider on its employer insurance plans; it doesn't list McKenzie-Willamette. "Our lawsuit alleges they are trying to eliminate the competition," Pryor said. "We are the competition." McKenzie administrators said in January they're struggling for the financial survival of the hospital. Statistics they released in January showed their client load increased steadily from 1996 to 2000 but declined last year. Just as important, the statistics showed the number of clients whose employer insurance plans paid for their care declined by 17 percent from 2000 to 2001. The number of clients on Medicaid, Medicare or the Oregon Health Plan, for whom the hospital provides treatment at a loss, increased, according to the data. Mid-year statistics show that hasn't changed, she said Thursday. "All of that continues to be true," Pryor said. "The trend continues. "We have looked at second-quarter patterns and we're continuing to see a decline," she said. "... It is costing us more to see patients than we're bringing in." Regence is by far the largest employer insurance plan in the valley, Pryor said. That means the trend will continue "unless, of course, our lawsuit wins or Regence decides to allow us as a preferred provider, which we continue to negotiate to do," she said. (end) http://springfieldnews.com/2002/news0810/frontpage/sn_frontpage-01.htm ------------------------------------------------------------ 5.sn - Bill Morrisette: Keep urban village concept in plan 5.rg - Bill Morrisette: PeaceHealth plan lacks key element ------------------------------------------------------------ By Bill Morrisette Commentary in The Springfield News, 8/10/02 Commentary in The Register-Guard, 8/12/02 When I was elected to the Springfield City Council in 1987, the Gateway Mall site was still a corn field and the Sports Center site a pumpkin patch. In March of 1992, we (the city of Springfield) paid $1,000 per acre for the Sports Center site -- it is now worth $250,000 per acre. I was amazed by the sudden arrival of Sony in 1994, but blown away by Sacred Heart/PeaceHealth's willingness to spend almost a half billion dollars to move to RiverBend in Gateway. By the year 2015, the number of employees in Gateway is projected to be 6,500, and almost all babies born to families living in Eugene will have Springfield (Gateway) listed as their place of birth -- even more amazing. My involvement in the development of this area goes back 14 years, and I have a vital personal interest and will take great pride in seeing high-quality progress toward completion over the next 15 years. The site plan for the Sacred Heart Hospital campus at RiverBend shown in The Register-Guard on Aug. 6 is not only beautiful but functional. It is tastefully done and will provide a healing atmosphere for patients and their families. Whether or not it will accommodate all the needs of those who visit and work in or near the campus is another question. In a Register-Guard full page ad last January 2002, a similar site plan to this very same development was published by Arlie & Company heralding plans to integrate the area's first "urban village" as part of the PeaceHealth project. It stated, "A place where people work. A place where people live. A place that offers enough amenities that people can walk from work to home to stores, restaurants and services. That's an urban village." The company went on to say, "The project is so unique that only a handful of developments in the entire nation have all of its components." Upon reading the article, I immediately e-mailed Arlie to congratulate the company on its vision of smart growth. Much to my dismay, this vision is no longer shared by PeaceHealth. Their new plan omits the urban village part of the design. The major redeeming quality of having all those people visiting, working and living in that relatively small area is mixed-use zoning to make sure they don't all come and go at the same time each morning and evening. Even with the completion of Pioneer Parkway and a new interchange at Belt Line Road and Interstate 5, by the year 2015 there could be traffic gridlock unless many people have no need to leave the campus area on a daily basis. The urban village development will alleviate much of this pressure. To again quote Arlie, "The archetypal new urbanism design, a self-contained village, includes a major employer, commercial and retail offices, walking paths, open space and a combination of housing types as well as hotels. "The development must be large enough to include all the components of a village, yet small enough to retain a neighborhood feel. While the Gateway area offers plenty of retail space, RiverBend plans to provide services not now available such as a grocery, dry cleaning, hardware store and assisted living facility." I cannot support this development unless the urban village concept is put back in the site plan. As an elected official who represents the Gateway area, I believe Arlie & Company and PeaceHealth have an obligation to the citizens of our community to maintain a livable environment for those who must live, work and visit the Gateway area of Springfield. Once the plans are approved and work begins, we will have to live with the results for the next hundred years. Please join me in monitoring and speaking out on the approval process. Bill Morrisette, a former mayor of Springfield, represents District 6 in the Oregon Senate. (end) http://springfieldnews.com/2002/news0810/opinion/sn_opinion-01.html http://www.registerguard.com/news/2002/08/12/ed.col.morrisette.0812.html ------------------------------------------------------------ 6.rg - Retro health care? ------------------------------------------------------------ By Guntis Plesums, Lorane Letter in The Register-Guard, 8/11/02 The Register-Guard did not disclose the name of the architects of the retro PeaceHealth main building that made a big front-page splash on Aug. 6. I expect that health care provided be considerably more innovative and inspired than the featured pre-World War I design. (end) http://www.registerguard.com/news/2002/08/11/ed.letters.0811.html ====================== BELTLINE/I-5 ====================== ------------------------------------------------------------ 7.sn - OTC denies $17 million more for I-5/Beltline project ------------------------------------------------------------ By Tim Shinabarger The Springfield News, 7/27/02 Springfield and Lane County won't get a second $17 million for the Interstate 5/Beltline Road interchange reconstruction project, the Oregon Transportation Commission ruled Wednesday. The reconstruction was Lane County's top project as it sought money from the Oregon Transportation Investment Act. The state has $17 million to spend for road projects in an area that includes Lane County and most of northwest Oregon except Portland. Springfield and Lane County had sought the entire $17 million for the I-5/Beltline project. It would have helped pay for a "fly-over" lane from northbound I-5 to westbound Beltline. The transportation commission previously committed a separate $17 million for the fly-over. City Council President Lyle Hatfield represented Lane County at an all-area meeting last Thursday to prepare a list recommending how the transportation commission could allocate the $17 million. Lane County and three area transportation commissions representing other counties came to the table with proposals. The I-5/Beltline project was one of three big projects proposed. Numerous smaller projects were also proposed, he said. Seeing that, Hatfield pulled the I-5/Beltline project from the table, he said. "There really wasn't a lot of enthusiasm on the part of the other constituents to give Lane County all the money," Hatfield said. On Wednesday the state transportation commission awarded funding for only one project in Lane County: $1.2 million to redo the passing lane on Highway 126 at Cougar Pass west of Veneta. Participants at the all-area meeting last Thursday issued a list of proposals for transportation funding during the years 2004-07. The list includes $7 million for the I-5/Beltline project and $4.1 million to upgrade 42nd Street to city standards between Main Street and Jasper Road. The transportation commission will select projects to fund in 2004-07 when it meets this fall. There's no certainty the transportation commission will approve, but it's likely, Hatfield said. "They typically look favorably on the recommendations," he said. "It's not done till it's done, but we think there's a very good chance for both of those projects." Not getting the $17 million shouldn't delay the project because they'll seek other state and federal funding, Hatfield said. ODOT has scheduled construction to start in 2005. City Councilor Christine Lundberg, who represents Springfield on a five-member I-5/Beltline decision-making team of government officials, advocated against the state providing the $17 million for the I-5/Beltline project, she said Wednesday. The proposal for money is contingent on an environmental analysis that hasn't yet been approved, she said. The analysis encompasses the entire I-5/Beltline project. That project includes reconstruction of the Gateway Street/Beltline Road intersection and a major re-build of Gateway Street, Kruse Way and Hutton Road. The Federal Highway Administration and Oregon Department of Transportation released a draft environmental analysis of the project in May. The draft includes several options for the Gateway/ Beltline work. All of the options require Springfield businesses to relocate. (end) http://springfieldnews.com/2002/news0727/community/sn_community-04.htm ------------------------------------------------------------ 8.sn - I-5/Beltline stakeholders agree to one last try ------------------------------------------------------------ By Tim Shinabarger The Springfield News, 8/14/02 Gateway neighbors and business owners and city and state officials will meet once more to seek a street alignment to allow the Interstate 5/Beltline Road re-alignment project to go forward. Members of a stakeholders working group met for three hours on Aug. 6 discussing whether they could agree on an alternative or whether they should scrap completely the proposed $104-million project. At issue is whether they can compromise on a street design that re-routes traffic on Beltline Road, Gateway Street, Hutton Road and Kruse Way. State and federal transportation agencies issued a draft environmental assessment in May that shows three alternative street alignments. The stakeholder group reports to a Beltline Decision Team made up of three government officials and two transportation officials. Christine Lundberg, a Springfield city councilor and one of the officials on the decision team, said recently that if the team voted on the alternative street alignments, the government officials -- Lundberg, Eugene Councilor David Kelly and County Commissioner Bill Dwyer -- would vote them all down and vote for the "no-build" option. According to Lundberg, each option affects livability for neighbors or forces businesses to move. At her request neighbors, business owners and staff from the city and the Oregon Department of Transportation met Monday to discuss the issue. They made enough progress that the stakeholder group Tuesday agreed to postpone a decision on what recommendation it would make to the decision team. The stakeholder group's original meeting agenda was to discuss whether to recommend the "no-build" option, ODOT project manager Karl Wieseke said before the meeting. The interstate reconstruction project has been in the discussion phase for years. It already has $18 million in federal funds committed to it. According to ODOT, the interchange is among the top 10 percent of crash locations in Oregon. Participants in the stakeholder group were nearly unanimous in wanting work to go forward. Many, however, were unsatisfied with all three options for the Beltline Road/Gateway Street work. All three options route Gateway Street traffic onto Hutton Road and Kruse Way in efforts to ease congestion and smooth traffic flow. All three options displace area businesses. One re-routes Kruse Way so it goes so close to residential neighborhoods that it involves sound walls. Todd Cooley, general manager of Comfort Suites, 969 Kruse Way, said, "None of them work. We're stuck in the situation where we have to pick the lesser of the evils. I don't want to do that. No build is the only option." Bonnie Ullmann, an officer in the Game Farm Neighbors association, said, "We want less noise impact on the neighborhood. We don't want to see gas stations disappear. We don't want to see restaurants that we go to disappear." The stakeholder group finally agreed to meet once more, find out if the small group Lundberg formed reaches a solution and make a recommendation to the Beltline Decision Team before it issues its decision in October. Lundberg did not attend Tuesday's stakeholders meeting. She said Thursday the small group she's meeting with is trying to find ways to "tweak" the street option that displaces the fewest businesses and doesn't push traffic toward the neighborhood. In that option, Gateway Street splits at a point just south of Kruse Way and northbound traffic travels via a re-aligned Kruse Way and Hutton Road to reach Beltline Road. Gateway Street between Beltline and Kruse Way becomes one-way southbound. According to ODOT and the Federal Highway Administration, that option displaces the Union 76 Station at the corner of Gateway and Beltline along with Spencer's Restaurant, Jack in the Box and the Chevron Station at Gateway Street and Kruse Way. The trick is to protect businesses, preserve the livability of the neighborhood and keep traffic moving the way it should, Lundberg said. The group she met with Monday is looking at how many lanes of traffic the Kruse Way/Hutton Road couplet needs; whether the landscaping in the design can change; whether bike lanes can be moved; whether setbacks from the street to sidewalks to businesses can be narrowed; whether parking lots can be connected between adjacent business properties so drivers can move between them. Her goal is to make the option palatable enough that stakeholders can live with it, agree to the option and refine the design before it's finalized, Lundberg said. Richard Boyles, a member of a group of Gateway business owners represented on the stakeholders group, is part of the Lundberg group. At the Aug. 6 stakeholders meeting Boyles said his goal is to minimize the impact of changes on livability in the area and to maintain access to businesses. Providing access could involve doing things to slow traffic enough so drivers can safely turn into business parking lots, which might involve eliminating medians that prevent turns, he said. Holding a copy of ODOT's draft environmental analysis, Boyles said, "If it's a choice between eliminating a business and eliminating a planter strip, those kinds of questions haven't been dealt with in this document." (end) http://springfieldnews.com/2002/news0814/community/sn_community-03.htm ====================== TRAUMA STATUS ===================== ------------------------------------------------------------ 9.rg - Hospital lowers trauma status ------------------------------------------------------------ By Tim Christie The Register-Guard, 8/11/02, Page 1C SPRINGFIELD -- Eleven years ago, McKenzie-Willamette Hospital earned a hard-fought designation as a Level II trauma center, capable of treating all but the most severe life-threatening injuries. But now the community hospital is downgrading to a Level III trauma center because neurosurgeons want to consolidate trauma cases that require brain surgery at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, officials said. Such intracranial traumas are rare -- McKenzie-Willamette sees three to five such cases a year in which doctors must crack the skull to do surgery. "The neurosurgeons feel from a clinical perspective it doesn't make sense to take a rarely performed procedure and spread it out between two facilities," said Tom Hambly, manager of McKenzie- Willamette's emergency department. "It's difficult to maintain clinical excellence in a procedure that's rarely done." It's expensive for both hospitals to maintain the necessary equipment and to keep staff trained to perform such surgeries, he said. But the change may have other implications: It's not clear if the McKenzie-Willamette downgrade will mean that other severe injury cases also will shift to Sacred Heart, a Level II trauma center. "It's too soon to tell," Hambly said. "This is uncharted territory." Sacred Heart spokesman Brian Terrett likewise said he didn't know what the effect will be. "We would need to look at the kind of cases they could handle and what cases they couldn't handle and see what the impact would be on our services," he said. One option for McKenzie-Willamette would be to drop out of the trauma system altogether, hospital spokeswoman Rosie Pryor said. But the hospital hasn't determined its best course of action yet, she said. State law governing the trauma system spells out the triage rules for trauma cases. The rules say all traumas should go to the highest rated hospital within 30 miles -- unless there are specific other circumstances. If a higher rated hospital is too busy to take a new trauma patient, for instance, a patient may go to the next highest-rated facility. As a Level III trauma center, McKenzie-Willamette can provide initial evaluation and stabilization, including surgical intervention, of severely injured patients. Patients who are in stable or improving condition and don't need specialty care can be checked into the hospital. Critically injured patients who require specialty care would be transferred to Sacred Heart. The statewide trauma system is governed by eight regional trauma advisory boards. It's possible state officials will allow the local trauma board to work out a way to divide trauma cases between the two hospitals, Hambly said. Both Hambly and Terrett said the hospitals' two emergency departments have historically worked closely together on trauma cases. McKenzie-Willamette earned its Level II status in 1991 and Sacred Heart followed a year later. When one ER gets swamped, it diverts trauma calls to the other. "Historically we have diverted back and forth from day to day, from hour to hour, based on our availability at that given moment," Hambly said. "Our ability to deliver trauma care is a fluctuating target, and the two hospitals have shared a wonderful relationship in sharing the trauma calls." The Thurston High School shooting in 1998 is a perfect example, he said. After a freshman student walked into the cafeteria, shot and killed two students and wounded 25 others, there were more casualties than either hospital could handle alone, so they divided them evenly. State law defines trauma as a penetrating injury of the head, neck, torso or groin; amputation above the wrist or ankle; spinal cord injury with limb paralysis; crushed chest; or multiple fractures of long arm or leg bones. Such traumas account for a relatively small percentage of the total visits to hospital emergency rooms. In 2001, for instance, McKenzie-Willamette had 35,000 visits to the ER, and activated its trauma system 117 times, Pryor said. Of those 117 traumas, no more than five had injuries that required a neurosurgeon to perform intracranial surgery, she said. Pryor said she doesn't expect the downgrade in trauma status to drastically effect the volume of patients in the ER because about 80 percent of the people who come to the ER get there under their own power or are driven by friends or family. The decision to downgrade came after hospital officials consulted with managers of the state trauma program. They were told they would have to go to a Level III status if they no longer took neurosurgical traumas, said Kathy Deacon, Mc-Kenzie-Willamette's vice president for operations. McKenzie-Willamette will maintain a Level III status while it evaluates a range of options, Deacon said. One of those options could be bowing out of the trauma system, Pryor said. If that were to occur, the hospital would continue to see patients in the emergency room, just not those covered by the trauma system. "It's a voluntary system," she said. "We are in partnership with physicians of all sorts to provide services as described by Oregon's trauma system. We're going to go back to the drawing table." (end) http://www.registerguard.com/news/2002/08/11/1c.cr.trauma.0811.html ------------------------------------------------------------ 10.sn - Local hospital trauma center drops a level ------------------------------------------------------------ By Peter Zuckerman The Springfield News, 8/14/02 When patients suffer serious injuries and activate the state trauma system, paramedics will now take them to Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene instead of McKenzie-Willamette Hospital. McKenzie-Willamette announ-ced Monday that the hospital's trauma center was downgraded to Level III. Sacred Heart now has the only Level II facility in Lane County. By state law, injuries that activate the trauma system go to the hospital with the highest level facility within 30 miles unless there are special circumstances. Injuries that activate the state trauma system include penetrating wounds to the head, neck, torso or groin; amputation above the wrist or ankle; spinal cord injuries with limb paralysis; crushed chest; and multiple fractures to long arm or leg bones. People living in Eastern Lane County who activate the trauma system will have to wait five to 10 minutes longer before they arrive at the Emergency Room, said Mark Walker from Springfield Fire and Life Safety. Paramedics can administer emergency care and attempt to stabilize victims during transport. Raelene Jarvis, trauma coordinator of the Oregon Department of Human Services, said it's hard to tell whether potential longer transport time would hurt trauma victims. "It really comes down to the individual situation," Jarvis said. Last year, McKenzie-Willamette received 35,000 visits to the ER; 117 of them activated the trauma system. "This only affects the very tiniest percentage of people," Rosie Pryor, spokeswoman for McKenzie-Willamette, said. If the Sacred Heart ER gets swamped or the ambulance can't get there for some reason, patients can be diverted to McKenzie-Willamette, which can still treat trauma patients. McKenzie-Willamette downgraded because neurosurgeons want to consolidate trauma cases that involve brain surgery to Sacred Heart, Pryor said. It's inefficient for both hospitals to keep staff and equipment available at both hospitals, she said. The hospital sees such surgeries only three to five times a year. When the hospital stopped supporting them, state law required they downgrade their trauma center to a Level III. McKenzie-Willamette may ask the state to make an exception, Pryor said. Or the hospital might decide to drop out of the trauma system completely. It hasn't decided on the best course of action yet, Pryor said. The downgrade won't significantly affect the number of patients who visit the ER, Pryor said. About 80 percent who go to the emergency room don't take an ambulance. They drive themselves or get someone else to take them. "But the line between trauma and not-trauma is in the eye of the beholder," Pryor said. "If someone visits us with a bump on their head and it later turns out their brain is bleeding, we're not going to stop helping them." (end) http://springfieldnews.com/2002/news0814/frontpage/sn_frontpage-02.htm ------------------------------------------------------------ 11.rg - Officials eye impact of trauma downgrade ------------------------------------------------------------ By Matt Cooper The Register-Guard, 8/18/02, Page 1C SPRINGFIELD -- Some medical officials say McKenzie-Willamette's downgrade in trauma care won't compromise emergency coverage in Eugene-Springfield, and may ultimately improve it. But John Garitz disagrees. Garitz, deputy chief for emergency medical services with Springfield Fire and Life Safety, said McKenzie-Willamette's decision last week means that trauma patients must be rushed to Eugene's higher-rated Sacred Heart Medical Center regardless of proximity -- and that could tack on minutes that hurt a patient's care. "For trauma patients on the east side of the county, it means longer transport times," Garitz said this week. "Those minutes could matter significantly." McKenzie-Willamette announced last week that it had downgraded itself from a Level II trauma center to Level III after neurosurgeons decided to consolidate services at Sacred Heart in downtown Eugene. As the sole remaining Level II trauma hospital in Eugene-Springfield, Sacred Heart immediately became the state-mandated destination for all trauma -- that is, a penetrating injury of the head, neck, torso or groin; amputation above the wrist or ankle; spinal cord injury with limb paralysis; crushed chest; or multiple fractures of long arm or leg bones. But for an ambulance coming from eastern Lane County, it can take another seven to 10 minutes -- sometimes 15 -- to get to Sacred Heart instead of McKenzie-Willamette, Garitz said. That could be critical in a field that revolves around the "golden hour" during which a trauma patient should get definitive medical care. Although McKenzie-Willamette and PeaceHealth, Sacred Heart's parent organization, are locked in an antitrust lawsuit, PeaceHealth spokesman Brian Terrett also acknowledged the need for McKenzie-Willamette to treat trauma patients at the highest level. "The best possible situation," he said, "is to have two Level II trauma centers." McKenzie-Willamette spokeswoman Rosie Pryor declined to comment, but Garitz hopes the hospital will remain a player in trauma care. While patients with head injuries must automatically go to Sacred Heart, Springfield Fire and Life Safety wants McKenzie-Willamette to remain a viable option for other trauma patients, Garitz said. The Area Trauma Advisory Board, which oversees local trauma care and makes recommendations to the state, feels the same way. The board will discuss McKenzie-Willamette's downgrade on Sept. 4 and is likely to recommend to the state board that the Springfield hospital be retained for other trauma emergencies, said Dr. David DeHaas, chairman of the Area Trauma Advisory Board. DeHaas estimated that, with the change in status at McKenzie-Willamette, about 30 or so patients could be rerouted annually to Sacred Heart for neurosurgical treatment. That's not a huge number, but rerouting all trauma patients could tax Sacred Heart's capacity, DeHaas said. Last year, for example, the two hospitals cared for 446 trauma patients, said Raelene Jarvis, trauma coordinator with the Department of Human Services, which oversees trauma care statewide. "The best utilization of all our resources would be to have McKenzie-Willamette involved in the care of trauma patients." DeHaas said. "It would be a stress on our system if suddenly all McKenzie-Willamette trauma volumes came to Sacred Heart." The hospitals competed over the trauma ratings in 1989, when both sought Level II status. A Level II trauma hospital has all the resources for trauma care, while a Level III provider is generally limited to resuscitation and stabilization of the critically injured person before their transport to a Level II provider, Jarvis said. A Sacred Heart official suggested early on that there weren't enough local neurosurgeons to sustain both hospitals at Level II. But both won the rating, McKenzie-Willamette in 1991 and Sacred Heart a year later. Even with the neurosurgeons moving to Sacred Heart, Jarvis and Jonathan Chin, state emergency medical services director, said it won't hurt care provided that McKenzie-Willamette continues to see trauma patients. "There are good, quality trauma programs at both hospitals," Jarvis said. "What has changed is a piece of one of the programs. It's not that anything has been lost -- it's been consolidated." Contrary to Garitz's argument, Jarvis and Chin said the additional travel time from McKenzie-Willamette to PeaceHealth is only about five to seven minutes -- generally a negligible difference, Chin added. Nor should the rating change significantly affect the area's response to worst-case scenarios, which vary by degree, said Dr. Bill Long, chairman of the State Trauma Advisory Board. In the event of, for example, a traffic accident that leaves dozens severely injured, patients with abdominal or chest injuries could go to McKenzie-Willamette while those with brain or spinal cord injuries end up at Sacred Heart, Long said. Long believes that trauma care in Eugene-Springfield won't suffer -- and could improve -- because the community will retain the same number of neurosurgeons, but these specialists won't have to shuttle between the hospitals to see patients. However, he also noted the larger issue: How all the hospitals' services will change if Sacred Heart Medical Center is approved for relocation to Springfield, about 2 1/2 miles from McKenzie-Willamette's door. "By them getting closer together, it destabilizes the uniqueness of each institution," Long said. "They're going to have to sit down and sort it out -- who's going to cover what, and what is the economic viability of two hospitals sitting side-by-side in a relatively small community?" (end) http://www.registerguard.com/news/2002/08/18/1c.cr.trauma.0818.html ======================= OTHER NEWS ======================= ------------------------------------------------------------ 12.rg - PeaceHealth to close clinic, move internists ------------------------------------------------------------ By Tim Christie The Register-Guard, 7/29/02, Page 1B PeaceHealth Medical Group has notified about 5,000 patients that its internal medicine clinic across the street from Sacred Heart Medical Center will close in October, and the doctors there will be assigned to other clinics in Eugene. PeaceHealth is closing the clinic on the second floor of the Physicians & Surgeons Building, 1200 Hilyard St., to save money and to put doctors in neighborhood clinics nearer to patients, spokesman Brian Terrett said. Four physicians specializing in internal, or adult, medicine will be reassigned to one of three PeaceHealth Medical Group clinics: at 3299 Hilyard St. in south Eugene; at 4010 Aerial Way in the Bethel area; and downtown at 1162 Willamette St. The physicians are Drs. Geraldine Darroca, Mark Dukeminier, Geoff Simmons and Sharon Meyers. Two other internists at the clinic, Drs. Phyllis Brown and Loren Barlow, are on leaves of absence and may retire, Terrett said. The closure also will affect numerous nurses and support staff. "Anytime you take a group of people and split them up, there's going to be impact," Terrett said. The office space where the internists work is also home to two other clinics: family medicine as well as diabetes, endocrine and metabolism. The closure of internal medicine will provide more flexibility in how the space is used, Terrett said. Closing the clinic and reassigning doctors, nurses and staff will save money by eliminating duplication of support services, he said. And it also will "put doctors in neighborhood clinics closer to patients." Terrett acknowledged some patients may be inconvenienced by the change. For instance, a physician for a south Eugene resident could be moved to the Bethel area clinic. PeaceHealth Medical Group is part of PeaceHealth, a health care group based in Bellevue, Wash., that operates five hospitals in the Northwest, including its flagship, Sacred Heart Medical Center. (end) http://www.registerguard.com/news/2002/07/29/1b.cr.peacehealthclinic.0729.html ------------------------------------------------------------ 13.rg - Annexation for urban village gets OK (Springfield City Beat) ------------------------------------------------------------ By Mark Baker The Register-Guard, 8/3/02, Page 3B IT WOULD BE a village by the river, a place where PeaceHealth employees and hospital visitors could grab a bite to eat or maybe get their dry cleaning done. It would also be a place to live and work, Arlie & Co. spokesman Larry Reed said. The Lane County Local Government Boundary Commission unanimously approved the annexation to the city of 13 acres owned by Arlie & Co. on Thursday night. The property is west of Baldy View Drive and north of PeaceHealth's 161-acre RiverBend site. The proposed River Village would be a mixed-use development consisting of retail, office and residential space, Reed said. The residential space would be condominiums and townhomes, he said. "We're really excited to be able to work with PeaceHealth and provide those kinds of services to the community," he said. Arlie & Co. last year sold PeaceHealth the property to build its new hospital on for $34 million. PeaceHealth hopes to have the proposed $350 million hospital, which will replace Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, completed by 2007. The River Village complex would also provide a place for employees of companies such as Sony Disc Manufacturing, Symantec Corp. and PacificSource to have lunch, to shop, to live, Reed said. Having such an urban village in the area would also cut down on traffic congestion on Gateway Boulevard and Belt Line Road, he said, because not as many workers would have to leave the area. The land is zoned medium-density residential, as is the PeaceHealth site, city planner Colin Stephens said. The annexation agreement with Arlie & Co. limits development on the property until certain infrastructure is extended to the site, Stephens said. Pioneer Parkway needs to be extended to the north, and sewer and stormwater work needs to be done, he said. The company has agreed to pay $750,000 in off-site transportation improvements, similar to the requirements that were asked of PeaceHealth, Stephens said. And the property would have to be developed in coordination with PeaceHealth, he said. "We want them to work together," he said. "We don't want any stand-alone developments out there." East Region reporter Mark Baker can be reached at 338-2374 or by e-mail at mbaker@guardnet.com. (end) http://www.registerguard.com/news/2002/08/03/3b.cr.sprcitybeat.0803.html ------------------------------------------------------------ 14.rg - Chickens and eggs (Springfield City Beat) ------------------------------------------------------------ By Mark Baker The Register-Guard, 8/3/02, Page 3B The deal is almost done, but "almost" keeps growing by weeks, City Manager Mike Kelly said. The city has been hoping to sign an agreement with Eugene businesswoman Carolyn Chambers to buy a 22-acre site along Interstate 5 in the Gateway area. The city's plan for its new sports center at 32nd and Main streets hinges on the deal, Kelly said. "It's a chicken-and-egg thing," he said. "We need that money in hand before we can commit." The deal for the land, which includes soccer fields currently used by Kidsports, is reportedly for $3.2 million. The problem is, Chambers wants the city to cancel its two leases with nonprofits -- one with Broad Base Programs, the other with Kidsports -- at the Gateway site before she'll sign, Kelly said. The city wants to get the two nonprofit organizations to sign leases at the 32nd and Main property, he said. It's all just a matter of trust at this point, Kelly said, adding, "We're just so close to completing the deal." Chambers was traveling out of the country and unavailable for comment, a spokeswoman with Chambers Communications said Friday. The $12 million, 160,000-square-foot sports center, originally planned for the Gateway site, could serve as many as 5,000 people daily and would feature an ice rink and six full-size basketball/volleyball courts. The agreement has also been delayed by questions raised by Chambers about a 200-by-200 easement granted to the Springfield Utility Board at the Gateway site's southwest corner. The Gateway property, currently zoned public land-open space, would be rezoned campus-industrial. And the 32nd and Main property would be rezoned from industrial to public land-open space. The city hopes to have the deal in hand soon, the rezoning completed this fall and the complex's first phase finished by fall 2003. East Region reporter Mark Baker can be reached at 338-2374 or by e-mail at mbaker@guardnet.com. (end) http://www.registerguard.com/news/2002/08/03/3b.cr.sprcitybeat.0803.html ------------------------------------------------------------ 15.rg - Hospital, nurses set tentative contract ------------------------------------------------------------ By Tim Christie The Register-Guard, 8/7/02, Page 1D PeaceHealth and the Oregon Nurses Association have reached a tentative agreement on a new two-year labor contract for the 1,000 registered nurses working at Sacred Heart Medical Center. The deal also covers nurses working for Sacred Heart Home Health. Nurses are scheduled to vote on the deal Aug. 14, union representative Paul Goldberg said. The previous contract expired June 30, and the sides had two negotiating sessions led by federal mediator Jim Bailey. At the second session Monday, Bailey shuttled between the negotiating teams, and 12 hours later the parties struck a deal, Goldberg said. In July, the nurses overwhelmingly rejected PeaceHealth's latest offer and authorized informational picketing, according to the Oregon Nurses Association's Web site. Last week, the nurses gathered in Springfield for a rally. Wages and benefits were the final sticking point, according to the association's Web site. Goldberg wouldn't discuss details of the settlement. It addresses union concerns about recruitment and retention of nurses, he said. The tentative agreement includes an improved pay differential for nurses working the night shift and for nurses who have bachelor's and master's degrees in nursing science. "There were some unpopular benefit changes that were adopted" involving medical insurance, Goldberg said. "But we think the wage increases offset those negatives." Both sides said they were glad to settle their differences. "We're pleased we've been able to come to a tentative agreement with the ONA," PeaceHealth spokesman Brian Terrett said. "We have a really great crew of nurses. As soon as a vote is completed, we look forward to moving ahead." (end) http://www.registerguard.com/news/2002/08/07/1d.cr.nurses.0807.html ------------------------------------------------------------ 16.rg - PeaceHealth sued over building lease ------------------------------------------------------------ By Christian Wihtol The Register-Guard, 8/10/02, Page 13A Add Steve DePalma to the list of people unhappy with PeaceHealth. DePalma, a Eugene-based real estate developer, on Thursday sued PeaceHealth in Lane County Circuit Court, saying the health-care organization in late 2000 reneged on a deal to lease part of his 22,700-square-foot office building off Centennial Boulevard in Eugene. PeaceHealth backed out of the lease as part of its decision not to expand its Hilyard Street complex downtown and instead to build a new hospital elsewhere in the Eugene-Springfield area, DePalma alleges. PeaceHealth eventually picked Springfield's Gateway district for its new hospital. DePalma is seeking nearly $250,000 in back rent, plus rent payments until he finds another tenant. Alternately, he's seeking $950,000 that he says he would have made in profit selling the building once PeaceHealth moved in. A PeaceHealth spokesman on Friday said the hospital had not seen the lawsuit and would not comment. DePalma joins a line of PeaceHealth critics. McKenzie-Willamette Hospital in Springfield is suing PeaceHealth in federal court, saying PeaceHealth is illegally trying to monopolize health care in Lane County. Eugene-Springfield watchdog groups say PeaceHealth's plans for Gateway will fuel sprawl and generate traffic snarls. PeaceHealth has denied the monopoly allegation and says its Gateway hospital will comply with land-use and transportation rules. For DePalma, the lawsuit caps an unsuccessful development project. DePalma in 1997 built the $2 million, one-story, wood-frame structure at 74 Centennial Loop, northwest of Autzen Stadium, on speculation that he would line up tenants. But over the next several years, he was unable to find takers. According to the lawsuit, PeaceHealth in June 2000 signed a 10-year lease for 9,000 square feet of the building for an office and computer center. The lease, attached to the lawsuit, requires DePalma to install an air-conditioning and ventilation system for the computer center. According to the lawsuit, the sides later haggled over who was to pay for this upgrade, which would cost roughly $100,000. Eventually, the sides agreed to split the cost, the lawsuit says. PeaceHealth put down a $24,000 deposit on the lease, according to the lawsuit. PeaceHealth in May 2000 had announced it would greatly expand its Hilyard campus, but by August and September, PeaceHealth realized that would be too difficult and costly, the lawsuit says. So, PeaceHealth began privately looking at other sites, the lawsuit says. PeaceHealth "secretly decided to break its lease (with DePalma) so its planned data center would be incorporated into a new hospital facility," the lawsuit alleges. Meanwhile, DePalma, with the signed PeaceHealth lease in hand, secured an offer from an investor willing to buy the building for $3.6 million, the lawsuit alleges. The sale was contingent on the lease to PeaceHealth, the lawsuit says. On Sept. 27, 2000, PeaceHealth canceled the lease, citing the continued disagreement over the air-conditioning costs, the lawsuit says. PeaceHealth never occupied the building, which remains vacant. (end) http://www.registerguard.com/news/2002/08/10/13a.bz.depalma.0810.html =========================== KEY ========================== "Health Options Digest" is best read with an email program that recognizes links to web pages. It includes leads from and links to stories and opinions from the following publications: rg = The Register-Guard sn = Springfield News ew = Eugene Weekly cn = Comic News ode = Oregon Daily Emerald cce = City Club of Eugene Newsletter or = Oregonian For some stories (in the Springfield News and the Eugene Weekly), two links are given. Use the first link if the story is still current; use the second if another issue has since been published. ========================= CREDITS ======================== "Health Options Digest" is published once or twice a week by the Coalition for Health Options In Central Eugene-Springfield (CHOICES) as a service to the community. It is intended as an unbiased digest of news and opinion related to proposed changes in health care options for the community. The purpose of "Health Options Digest" is to inform, not editorialize. Please forward your copy of "Health Options Digest" to a friend. If you know of someone who should be on the CHOICES email list, or for questions about your subscription, send email to rzako@efn.org. ======================== MORE INFO ======================= Please visit our web site for info about how you can contact us, the local papers, elected officials, PeaceHealth and McKenzie-Willamette: http://www.efn.org/~choices