Community leaders' suit against Mayor Mitch Landrieu in hospital dispute are rejected
Published: Thursday, September 02, 2010, 8:15 PM Updated: Thursday, September 02, 2010, 8:21 PM
A New Orleans judge has rejected the claims of six eastern New Orleans community leaders who asserted that Mayor Mitch Landrieu illegally removed them from a public hospital board that is planning the first full-service hospital to open east of the Industrial Canal since Hurricane Katrina.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu is proceeding with his $110 million redevelopment plan for Methodist Hospital, a price tag that includes the land acquisition and a complete renovation expected to yield an 80-bed hospital by 2013.
Attorney Jacqueline Goldberg, the spokeswoman for the six plaintiffs and author of their case, had asked Civil District Judge Sidney Cates IV to reinstate the former board members and freeze the $40 million in federal hurricane block grant money that has been earmarked for the hospital service district.
Landrieu's administration and the revamped hospital board promised in an Aug. 20 closing to buy the shuttered Methodist Hospital building from Universal Health Services using $16.25 million of that federal money.
Cates sided with the Landrieu administration, which argued that Goldberg made strategic and procedural legal errors that asked the judge for orders he was powerless to grant. Cates, however, did not rule explicitly on the constitutionality of the new state law that Landrieu used to choose his slate of hospital directors.
The plaintiffs have a right to appeal or pursue different legal avenues altogether.
The Landrieu administration hailed Cates' decision. Deputy Mayor and Chief of Staff Judy Reese Morse said the mayor is proceeding with his $110 million redevelopment plan for Methodist, a price tag that includes the land acquisition and a complete renovation expected to yield an 80-bed hospital by 2013.
"The mayor has installed a new leadership team to work with us, and we are pleased to be moving forward," Morse said.
Landrieu inherited the hospital district and its plans for a hospital from his predecessor, Ray Nagin, who had set aside the $40 million in grant money as part of protracted negotiations with UHS to buy Methodist and two other properties.
After he took office in May, the new mayor blasted Nagin's handling of the deal. He moved on the board seats using a 2010 legislative act that gave the New Orleans mayor more direct authority in appointing hospital district directors. The changes eliminated term limits and the requirement of City Council confirmation, meaning board members would serve at the pleasure of the mayor. The sponsor was then-state Sen. Ann Duplessis, who now works for Landrieu.
Goldberg argued that the law applies to future appointments but cannot be used to alter the terms of members who were already seated under the original law that created the hospital district. In oral arguments, she also questioned the constitutionality of the law, saying the Duplessis amendment was not sufficiently related to the bill's original content and that it was not properly advertised as a local bill must be. Her initial written pleadings apparently did not effectively raise those issues.
Cates declined to freeze the federal grant money on the grounds that Goldberg's argument was "vague and (failed) to allege any facts regarding the ownership, possession or right to possession" of the money.
In the meantime, the Landrieu administration and hospital board must find additional sources of financing to complete the hospital renovation and support initial operating costs. The mayor has named city and state capital outlay and general fund revenue as potential sources, along with selling bonds that would be paid back with revenue from the hospital. The latter option almost certainly would require the backing of federal mortgage insurance. |
