Owen County Health Board considers next move

The Owen County Health Board met last week to consider what to do following last month’s decision to vacate the 86 East Market Street building until repairs have been made.

“We have gotten a couple properties that were mentioned, that were available, if we had planned on relocating. Do you know did you get like, would that be feasible for us? Do we have anything from the commissioners?” Board president Lyndsay Wilson said as she introduced the topic.

Health department administrator Christine McBride said that they did not receive anything from the commissioners, but that the county attorney had reviewed the lease agreements for another Market Street property owned by Mike Sudol and for the former IHC and WIC building on West Morgan Street.

McBride said the attorney wanted a less wordy lease for the Market Street offer and a one year lease.

“He said that one was very generically, nothing wrong with it,” McBride said of the Morgan Street property. “It was $800 a month. And the one on Market Street was $1,200. And then, I've talked to the county attorney, and he also wanted me to see how you guys would feel about if they didn't put anybody else in that building, would you be willing to help pay for the renovation of the East Market Street building? Now, that was just out there unofficial, off the record. That was from the county attorney. I haven't heard anything from a commissioner about that.”

Wilson said that she did not think the board needed to worry about the option to repair the building without the proposal coming from the commissioners.

It was asked if any changes had been made to the 86 East Market Street property, and it was said that no repairs had been made thus far.

It was also noticed that the Sudol property would need some renovation to fit the health department’s needs.

“We want to consider location, convenience for the public, that sort of thing. But we also need to look at our budget,” Wilson said.

It was then asked how much funding the department has.

“We have we received the $210,000.32 from reimbursement and Medicare, Medicaid and insurance reimbursements. So we have that money. And then we also have our food fund. So there's probably just a rough estimate in the food fund about $68,000,” McBride said.

She said the budget also had a line item for utilities.

“Assuming we could get a comparable price on each one of them. I would rather be downtown. Because the the office staff does go to the courthouse on a regular basis. Even though the the property, what I’ll call the Sudol property is off the alley. It's where the vet's office used to be. It still is on the square. And people can certainly be directed to it. And it does have space, whether it has exactly more space for storage, I don't know,” county health officer Diane Wells said.

The drawback of the Sudol property is it does not have access off of the square.

“If the board were to give a blanket endorsement to proceed to try to negotiate for the better property, the better price and then the best contract, and then we would have to go through the attorney, then we'd have to go through the commissioners. And but before we would even send it to the commissioners, we would pass it by you guys. Christy would let you know, hey, for these reasons, we are asking to go ahead with this contract presented to the commissioners,” Wells said. “Nothing will go to the attorney until you know what we're sending to the attorney. Once it goes to the attorney, it still has to go through the powers that be.”

It was then asked if they had to be out of the Crane Avenue building by the deadline.

“By the 30th of June, we will no longer be doing testing. Now that makes it not necessary for us to have people going in and out of that. Therefore, to the best of my knowledge, my husband's not going to kick us out the 30th of June, but we the need for this is gone,” Wells said. “And it's time for us to move on to a permanent place.”

The health board unanimously gave that approval.

This article originally appeared on Evening World: Owen County Health Board considers next move