KCAW - Sitka

The Eyak is back in Sitka.

Ten days after the 80-foot tender and mail boat ran aground and sank just north of the Goddard hot springs, it’s back afloat — after a virtual alphabet soup of state and federal agencies and local companies worked together to salvage it.

At about 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon,  the tugboat Marauder chugged into Sitka Channel with the Eyak in tow. Those watching as the vessel was tied up at Sitka Sound Seafoods said the plan for now is to take the Eyak to Wrangell for repairs.

Michael Wortman, the head of the Coast Guard marine safety detachment in Sitka, said that in total, the Eyak spilled about twenty gallons of fuel — a fraction of the 800 to 1,000 gallons the boat was believed to have on board.

“We, honestly, got really lucky,” Wortman said. “Since the vessel inverted, all the oil was trapped inside,  and SEAPRO and SEAL did a great job preventing a lot more from being discharged into the water.”

The vessel was upside down in forty feet of water, Wortman said, which counter-intuitively limited leaking.

And Wortman said most of what was spilled was soaked up with absorbent material by the Southeast Alaska Petroleum Response Organization, or SEAPRO, the agency tasked with responding to local spills.

The Eyak is a crucial lifeline for the small communities of southern Baranof Island.

Mayor Debra Gifford, of Port Alexander, said the Eyak’s owner and captain, David Castle, has been supplying the town for more than two decades. Finding someone to fill the gap will be hard, Gifford said.

“It’s going to be kind of difficult because the Eyak was a multi-service operation,” she said. “Because they did all those things — the mail, the freight, buying fish — he was able to make a living doing those. But to do any single one of those is not super cost-effective, so we probably are going to have to think about the future here, to consolidate things and only get stuff in once a month or every few months. I’m just not really sure how that is going to play out yet.”

But for now, the town’s 45 year-round residents are in good shape, Gifford said. Castle owns a second, smaller boat, the Silver Arrow, which is taking mail and groceries down to Port Alexander while the Eyak is out of commission. Fuel comes in on a separate barge.

So while there’s no way to get, say, a couch or a new washing machine, or lumber for a building project, nobody is in dire straits.

“Everyone’s got food to eat and that kind of thing,” Gifford said. “I think mostly people, off the bat, are pretty heartbroken for Dave Castle.  The loss of the Eyak is more than just him bringing us stuff, it’s his home, and it’s a lifestyle for him to come out here and, you know, be a part of the infrastructure of our community. He’s a good friend to all of us out here.”

The Coast Guard’s Wortman said Castle had insurance, which is paying for the salvage operation. Friends also set up a fundraising campaign for Castle. So far, it has raised over $25,000.

Sitka will sell off a significant portion of its land at the Gary Paxton Industrial Park. The Assembly approved the sale at its meeting Tuesday night. It’s the first of what may be several sales at the former pulp mill site.

Most of Tuesday’s sale will go to the Sitka-based processor Silver Bay Seafoods.

This audio temporarily unavailable.

In the 15 years since Sitka took over the defunct mill site left by the Alaska Pulp Corporation, the city’s goal has been to “maximize its economic benefit” — in other words, to develop the land in a way that replaces some of the jobs lost when the pulp mill closed in the early 1990s.

That’s the mission for what’s now the Gary Paxton Industrial Park, and the discussion at Tuesday night’s meeting hinged on whether assembly members thought that selling the land is the best way to accomplish it.

For Assembly Member Aaron Swanson, it was a no-brainer.

“When the city took over the industrial park, I believe the intent was to make it so there would be economic growth,” he said. “Since that time, most of these lots that are coming up tonight have been vacant, with the exception of the last couple years during the dam expansion…I have no problem getting these properties off the city’s hands.”

But Assembly Member Tristan Guevin worried the city was in too much of a rush to sell a valuable public asset.

“We’re talking about public land,” Guevin said. “And we need to ensure that 50 years from now, there’s public access, it’s being used for the good of our community. And I don’t know that the sale of such a substantial portion of the industrial park necessarily guarantees that longterm.”

Here’s the breakdown on what the city sold:

Lot 17, which is less than half an acre on the northern edge of the park, went to Monarch Tannery for $110,000. The tannery is now housed in the park’s Administration Building, and wants to expand.

The rest of Tuesday night’s sale went to Silver Bay Seafoods. That includes Lot 11, which is the former waste water treatment plant next to to Silver Bay’s current processing building. Silver Bay hopes to use Lot 11 as a fish oil plant, to turn fish waste into the kind of omega-3 capsules found on pharmacy shelves.

The sale also includes Lots 12A and 13, about three and a half acres in the center of the industrial park, next to the TAB bottling plant. Silver Bay wants to use that space as cold storage and, eventually, some kind of canning or packaging site for a line of retail fish products.

Silver Bay is also seeking much of the park’s remaining waterfront to build a marine services center. That’s wasn’t on the agenda Tuesday night, though it was very much on peoples’ minds.

The Assembly voted for the Monarch Tannery sale 5 to 1, and for the Silver Bay Sale 6 to 1 — assembly member Michelle Putz was absent for the first vote. In both cases, Guevin was the lone ‘no’ vote.

During public comment, a parade of Silver Bay supporters stepped up to the mic to support the company.

Andrea Thomas: Hello, my name is Andrea Thomas, and I’m speaking in support of this…

Jim Seeland: Just a couple of things in support of Silver Bay Seafoods as an entity, and what a great community partner they are…

Cory Baggen: I want to come to you guys tonight and let you know that we are very supportive of this deal with Silver Bay Seafoods…

Bryan Howie: These guys know how to build. They know what they’re doing.

In thirty minutes of public comment, ten people spoke in favor of the sale, while four asked the Assembly to hold off.

Sitka resident Jeff Farvour reminded assembly members that the city received $7.5 million in state funding to build a multipurpose dock at the industrial park, and urged them to wait until after they’ve decided the placement and purpose of that dock before selling any more of the surrounding uplands. “I think you might have the cart ahead of the horse on this one,” he said.

In the end, the Assembly did vote to pull one lot, 9c, from the  sale, out of concerns that it might interfere with the dock.

Silver Bay President Troy Denkinger spoke last during public comment, laying out his vision for the company.

“For us fishermen, it’s kind of finishing our dream,” he said. “Being vertically integrated and getting products to the shelf with our name on them. We don’t do that today. We provide a commodity, [a] high volume, block product, and we sell to other businesses that turn it into that final product, put their name on it. Our vision is, we want to have our name on those products, and we want to produce those products, we want to start by trying to produce those here in Sitka.”

Deputy Mayor Matt Hunter said he found that vision convincing.

“We have an economic powerhouse that’s ready to grow,” he said.  “We owe it to them as Sitkans. They’ve been dedicated to us, [and] I’m ready to let them grow.”

Mayor Mim McConnell said her only reservation was that the sale didn’t include any benchmarks to ensure that Silver Bay actually does what they say they’ll do, “so that the public knows that their interests is being protected and these benchmarks are being reached and jobs are being created and there’s a solid plan.”

Guevin said the lack of benchmarks was a red flag.

“I don’t feel that we have gone through our due diligence as a city govenment,” he said.

Indeed, there was some confusion over what, exactly, was being sold Tuesday night, and for how much. At different points, McConnell and assembly member Michelle Putz had to be corrected about which plots were actually up for sale. Guevin referred to a $1.4-million price tag, while Steven Eisenbeisz said it was “just over $640,000.”

In fact , the Silver Bay sale totalled about $960,000.

But after more than an hour of discussion on the Silver Bay proposal, McConnell spoke for most assembly members when she declared,

McConnell: I think somebody just needs to say it: fish or cut bait. [Laughter]. Any other comments?

Eisenbeisz: Let’s go fishing!

And with that, another piece of the industrial park was sold

The City of Sitka wants to have some regulations in place by the time the public use of marijuana becomes legal in Alaska on February 24.

At a Town Hall Meeting Monday night residents had the chance to offer their opinions on where and if marijuana should be used in public places in the community.

And as you might expect with a controversial topic like marijuana, there were opinions to spare.

A draft of Sitka’s first-ever marijuana ordinance is scheduled to go before the assembly at their next regular meeting on January 27. The recreational use of marijuana becomes legal in Alaska on February 24.

The statewide ballot proposition passed by voters last November defines public consumption, but doesn’t define public space.

That leaves all communities — not just Sitka — scrambling to come up with rules governing where it is legal to smoke — or ingest — marijuana.

Municipal attorney Robin Koutchak has already drafted an ordinance for marijuana. It’s based on Sitka’s existing rules covering where it’s legal to drink.

“So the starting point for the statute for alcohol is: You can’t consume alcohol outside of a building in the area zoned central business district. You can’t consume alcohol on any public street, alley, sidewalk, municipally-operated harbor walkway — things like that. We’re looking at the same thing for marijuana.”

And this is just the first step. Alaska’s statute opens the door to the commercialization of marijuana in 2016. City planner Scott Brylinsky recently attended a conference sponsored the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police. He returned with some specific ideas about where Sitka should go next.

“Prohibit the home production of THC extracts using flammable gases or solvents. To prohibit marijuana-infused products which resemble commercial products — especially those which would be attractive to children. And to inhibit the gray-market: To limit the number of plants like Boulder and Denver have done.”

Brylinsky said that there had already been 30 home explosions — some fatal — in Colorado as a result of people attempting to extract THC from marijuana plants.

Brylinsky, Koutchak, school superintendent Mary Wegner, and police chief Sheldon Schmitt comprised the panel for the Town Hall Meeting.

Sitkans last November approved the marijuana legalization initiative by a 70-30 split. Koutchak said these numbers were driving her office toward creating regulations, rather than an outright ban, which was proposed in Anchorage and then dropped following the election.

About 75 residents attended the meeting. Koutchak said she felt that they represented opinion along a spectrum between the anti-marijuana propaganda film “Reefer Madness,” and the devil-may-care attitude of Cheech & Chong.

Resident Bobbi Daniels didn’t want the city to presume too much from the election results.

“Voting yes because the government’s job is not being a nanny, and what people do in the privacy of their own homes is their own business is hugely different than voting yes because you’re okay with recreational marijuana use. And I’m just hoping that you come down pretty heavy-handed on the definition of public use, because it will be a lot easier to lighten up those restrictions on down the road than it will be to tighten them up when the genie is out of the bottle.”

Health advocate Andrea Thomas said she voted yes on the ballot initiative because she felt it was wrong to keep sending people to prison. But, now that marijuana will be legal, she wanted to focus attention on another demographic.

“I think something we should keep in mind is How Do You Prevent Kids From Starting? There’s a lot of research on that and one is high price. High price and the social norm of it’s not acceptable. So I think not allowing it in any public place — bars, clubs — people can have it in their homes, their private yards. But I think public places should be out.”

Thomas’s position on kids had traction with the rest of the audience, but there was a difference of opinion on whether marijuana should be limited to homes. Attorney Denton Pearson said there were rules in Utah at one time for alcohol that might be a model for marijuana.

“In order to buy a mixed drink over the counter in Utah, you had to be a member of a private club.”

Pearson said that visitors could buy temporary memberships by producing proper identification. There were supporters for this idea — and a similar one called the “Amsterdam” model — in the audience.

Attorney Robin Koutchak wanted to find out how many.

“Could we have a show of hands? How many people in the room tonight would be in favor of Sitka having a private marijuana club, or allowing private marijuana clubs? There’s about 75 people in here and I’m not even going to begin counting hands, because it’s clearly a majority.”

It was Koutchak last summer who first suggested to the Sitka assembly that the marijuana initiative — if passed — represented a revenue opportunity. Several people at the Town Hall spoke in favor of taxing marijuana to support the rehabilitation of people suffering from drug addiction.

There’s also the possibility of taxing marijuana to support schools. Resident Robert Hattle, a nurse and board member of KCAW, thought this was a problem.

“We need money for schools, but I think there’s a real ethical disconnect there. We’re encouraging parents to use marijuana so we can afford the schools. I want parents home helping kids do homework, spending quality time with them — not paying taxes on marijuana.”

The attention on schools brought fisherman Eric Jordan to the microphone. He wondered aloud about an issue that did not get much attention during the legalization debate.

“Do we have comprehensive drug education programs as part of our health education programs? How are we going to be dealing with this? We’re going to be facing a world where instead of it’s illegal and we’re going to ignore it — how are we going to prepare our students?”

Superintendent Mary Wegner said Sitka Schools had never ignored drug issues. The district had routinely participated in studies of high-risk student behaviors, and had a good idea — across all demographics and achievement levels — of what students were doing.

But there was a significant gap.

“We do not have a K-12 health curriculum. So we may have to take a look and see what we can do to beef things up.”

As public meetings go, Sitka’s marijuana town hall was cordial. Residents seemed eager to embrace this new freedom responsibly. There was even humor, thanks to local fisherman and author Ron Rau, who contradicted police chief Sheldon Schmitt’s assertion that law enforcement would crackdown on drivers impaired by marijuana. He compared pot smokers to someone who gets behind the wheel after drinking.

“They get in the car and they want to see how fast it will go. How fast can we take that curve? Someone in the back will be saying Faster! Faster! Take kids that have been smoking — they’re doing 25 in a 45 mph zone! And someone in the back is saying Slow Down! Slow Down!”

Municipal attorney Robin Koutchak anticipated that this would be the first of many similar meetings as Sitka shaped its marijuana laws. Mayor Mim McConnell thanked the crowd for turning out, saying “We’ll work through this and see where we go.”

The State Board of Game met this weekend in Juneau to consider a number of proposed changes to Southeast hunting regulations — including some rules important to Sitka hunters of deer, mountain goat, and bear.

Sitka falls in Game Management Unit 4, which is the so-called ABC islands: Admiralty, Baranof, Chichagof. The Board of Game looks at regulations on an unit-by-unit basis. Most of the attention at this meeting will be on other units.

But there are four proposals for Unit 4 that — if adopted by the board — would mean significant changes in how Sitkans hunt.

Review the Sitka-area proposals.
See the Board of Game agenda.
Listen to the live stream of this weekend’s (Jan 9-13, 2015) meeting.

Proposal number 10, for instance, would change the opening date of what Sitkans commonly call “doe season.” As things stand now, hunters can begin taking bucks on August 1, and then does on September 15. Proposal 10 would push that latter date back a month, to October 15.

The point of the proposal, which was submitted by a member of the public, is not to protect does — it’s to protect fawns. Because what we commonly call “doe season” is actually “any deer season,” and shooting even fawns is legal.

This sounds cruel, but according to biologist Phil Mooney, the wild is a cruel place for fawns.

“Biologically, they have a very high natural mortality, ranging from 30-65 percent, meaning that those animals are not going to make it one way or the other. So if you harvest fawns, it wouldn’t be additive. It would be compensatory.”

For a lot of hunters this goes against the grain of what they’re taught — often from childhood — about deer hunting. Does and fawns are supposed to be off-limits to protect the population. In Southeast Alaska, however, the largest single factor in deer survival is weather. In 2007, heavy winter storms killed 85-percent of the deer on Northeast Chichagof Island. Compounding that near-disaster was an elevated deer population, which had severely depleted the habitat.

Mooney says hunters who take does are not “wasting a tag,” and hunters who take a fawn — often out of necessity — are not harming the population.

“Quite frankly it’s hard for a lot of hunters who are brought up under a buck-only system to take does. And so there’s a component out there that says, I need meat, I’m taking any deer. And another that says, Why are you shooting a fawn?”

Proposal 9 is also about deer, and recommends increasing the bag limit in Unit 4 to six per hunter, with the last two deer being bucks.

This proposal was also brought forward by a member of the public. Now someone is calling the radio station to remind me that in Sitka the bag limit is already six deer — but two of those deer, technically, are available under federal subsistence regulations that apply only to Sitka and residents of other subsistence-qualified communities. So, strictly speaking, our bag limit is four deer per year.

Mooney says the pressure for increasing the bag limit to six is coming from outside of Sitka, from hunters in non-subsistence communities who would like to hunt on the ABC islands. He doesn’t consider Proposal 9 to be a conservation matter. And he says that, statistically speaking, the 4-deer bag limit is more than sufficient.

Even Juneau residents who go hunting are doing pretty well.

“The average is 2.3 per successful hunter, over ten or twenty years. So it’s under-utilized. Now there are some designated hunters that get more deer, but if you look at the number of people involved we’re still underutilized. And quite frankly, for most people, if you get two deer you’re in pretty good shape.”

Across Southeast Alaska, the annual deer harvest runs to almost 6,000 deer.

The last two proposals affect far fewer people, but also represent major changes. Proposal 8 would create a resident-only drawing hunt for mountain goat around Blue Lake, Medvejie, and the south fork of the Katlian River — both areas favored by Sitkans because of their relatively easy accessibility.

The mountain goat population is down significantly on Baranof Island — almost by half, in fact — due to the same harsh winters that killed many deer a few years ago. The other complication is that hunters in some areas were taking too many females — nannies — around 42-percent of the harvest, according to Mooney. So he’s used his emergency order authority to close those areas and force hunters to go elsewhere.

A resident-only draw hunt — or lottery — sounds like a reasonable approach to reopening hunting around Sitka, with one exception. “Resident” means “anyone in Alaska.”

“There isn’t a good way to set that up so that you could have a local preference.”

Mooney says the decline in the goat population seems to have bottomed out, and the registration permit system in place now appears to be working. Also, Sitka hunters are getting better at telling billy goats from nannies — though they look very similar. The nanny harvest this year has dropped to less than 12-percent.

And finally, a proposal about brown bears — probably the most tightly-regulated type of hunting in Unit 4. Proposal 11 recommends creating 7 so-called “non-resident second-degree of kindred” hunts. This is a rather wordy way of saying that a Sitkan could take an out-of-town relative hunting for bear. Like goats, it requires a registration permit. The Department of Fish & Game has issued as many as 30 permits on a given year — but there’s the rub. In a Brown Bear Management Strategy developed between the state and the Forest Service, 4 hunts was established a guideline.

Mooney says he’s not hung up on the number of kindred hunts. The proposal simply requires the state to settle on something.

“It would just limit the total number to someplace close to what was recommended in the BBMS. They were calling for four hunts, but we’ve had as many as 30 second-degree kindred hunts, so we’re orders of magnitude out of what was in the recommendation.”

Of all the Sitka-area proposals, this one about kindred hunts is the most likely to fly. Where it lands — how many hunts are allowed, and how the department regulates them, through a draw permit or whatever — is up to the board. Mooney says, “We’ll see where they go with it.”

Sitka Community Hospital has an interim CEO. The hospital board named Chief Nursing Officer Raine Clarke to the post at a special meeting on Monday. The term of Clarke’s service is not known at the moment. What is known, however, is that former CEO Jeff Comer will not be receiving anything more than his paycheck for his work through last Friday, as Sitka’s embattled hospital struggles to balance its books and find direction.

Raine Clarke is at the top of the duty roster to serve as CEO when the regular hospital CEO is absent — regardless of whether it’s a planned absence. This is by-the-book hospital policy.

Municipal attorney Robin Koutchak nevertheless urged the hospital board to give Clarke the nod formally, even if it was on a very short-term basis. The hospital board also liked the idea of rotating other members of the hospital administration into the CEO role, as has been standard practice.

Koutchak said that right now a team really couldn’t serve as CEO .

“My caution is: You really need somebody in charge of the ship.”

So the board settled on Clarke, and there was some comfort in following established procedures to arrive at that decision.

This is board chair Celeste Tydingco.

“We’ve already got policies in place. This isn’t a huge emergency right now. We do have things that we’ve already established that are working. But let’s meet real soon. Let’s get a plan together very, very quickly and make a good plan, and not just a knee-jerk plan.”

To help, the city of Sitka is providing the support of municipal administrator Mark Gorman, chief administrative officer Jay Sweeney, and municipal attorney Robin Koutchak. Member Lori Hart thought that between the hospital board, hospital staff, and municipal staff, some kind of transition plan could be developed in about three weeks.

The transition will not involve Jeff Comer, who became CEO of Sitka Community Hospital in October, and handed in his resignation around New Year’s. Comer vacated his hospital-owned apartment on Sunday, January 4, turned in his keys, rental car, and laptop, and departed Sitka for Phoenix, Arizona, according to Koutchak.

Sitka’s attorney wanted to clear up any misconception about whether Comer would entitled to a severance package worth two months of his $185,000 salary.

She read from an email Comer sent to board members the day before the meeting.

“He says: Per Section 7a of my Employment Agreement the Board must pay me for 60 days. That’s not what that section says in his contract. So if you all could look at his contract, and go to that section. 7a states that he is to give 60 days notice. It doesn’t say we’re to pay him. It says he’s to give us 60 days notice.”

In his email, Comer agrees to remain available to work telephonically from Arizona to support the hospital during the transition. Koutchak felt that didn’t fulfill his employment contract. Furthermore, there’s the alleged assault.

Comer failed to appear for a scheduled meeting with the assembly on January 2, saying — through a statement — that he had been attacked and beaten on a local trail that afternoon, and feared for his safety.

Koutchak felt it was best to move on.

“He gave us his resignation letter dated December 30, and then on Friday he really, really let everyone know by way of the assembly meeting that he was gone, and Sunday he was on a plane. So I think we’re really safe in saying Friday was his last day. Pay him up through Friday, let it go.”

But members Hans von Rekowski and Ann Wilkinson were unsure. Von Rekowski expressed concern about contracts and other work that Comer had in progress, and which might be difficult for someone else to pick up. Wilkinson wondered if the board should postpone accepting Comer’s resignation until they were satisfied that he had left things in order.

Koutchak thought that was unrealistic.

“Ann, I think he’s gone. Elvis has left the building!” (Laughter…)

During public testimony, the hospital board felt some heat — both real and figurative — from the 60 staff and members of the public packed into the hospital’s classroom space. There was sentiment that the board was too dependent on the services of the headhunting firm B.E. Smith in hiring Comer, when a simple Google search would have shown that Comer had jumped often between jobs.

Physician Richard Wien was clearly disappointed in Comer. He urged the board toward accountability and action.

“Real, material damage has been caused to this hospital. How is that so? Well just a couple of examples: I hear nurses are applying to SEARHC. Do you know how hard nurses are to get? I heard that the two mid-levels (physicians) who were coming here were not going to come here or sign contracts because they heard of the financial issues related to this hospital. And it goes on and on and on. When a professional has a job to do, they roll their sleeves up and do it!”

Wien recommended putting a physician on the board. That idea was seconded by member of the public Owen Kindig, who wanted the board to look beyond traditional models of hospital governance. “This is a watershed moment for Sitka,” he said.

There was also a sense of community in the room, and a willingness to work toward a solution. Members of the hospital finance department said that an audit would show that the numbers may not be as bad as Comer had indicated. The mood compelled assembly member Ben Miyasato to step forward and remind hospital staffers that they will come out the other side. “You will weather this,” he said.

Note: Sitka police are soliciting the public’s help regarding the alleged assault of Jeff Comer, which reportedly occurred last Friday at about 1 PM near the bridge on the lower part of Herring Cove Trail. Anyone with helpful information about Comer’s assailants — reportedly a man and a woman — are asked to call police at 747-3245.

A scheduled discussion between the Sitka Assembly and Sitka Community Hospital CEO Jeff Comer was sidetracked when Comer didn’t appear at the meeting Friday. Instead, he sent hospital board president Celeste Tydingco to read a statement.

“I regret that I cannot be here in person tonight. But, as many of you may have heard, I was physically assaulted, and further attacked as I was injured on the ground,” the statement says. “As a result, I am still quite shaken up and do not feel safe coming to this meeting in person.”

Listen to audio of Tydingco reading Comer’s full statement below:

Sitka police chief Sheldon Schmitt confirms that Comer called dispatch Friday afternoon to report an assault, and an officer was sent to take his statement. Comer alleges that he was approached by a man and a woman on a hiking trail near Sitka around 1 PM, and knocked down and kicked after being recognized as the hospital CEO.

Chief Schmitt says police are attempting to follow-up with Comer, to get a better description of his alleged assailants.

Comer required neither treatment or hospitalization for his injuries. And he was apparently well enough to travel.

“Given the physical assault I endured today, I can no longer remain in Sitka, and will be leaving this weekend,” the statement reads. “Even with this, I am still willing to be available to help the city and hospital as needed, but it will now have to be from Arizona.”

Comer took over as CEO of Sitka Community Hospital just three months ago. In remarks to the Sitka Chamber of Commerce in November, he outlined broad plans to regionalize services at the hospital, especially through the use of telemedicine. In early December, however, Comer disclosed that the hospital was in financial jeopardy, and required a $1 million loan to stay afloat. The assembly approved that loan on December 23. Comer subsequently tendered his resignation.

The board of the city-owned hospital will meet at noon Monday in the 1st floor classroom of the hospital to consider Comer’s resignation. Both Mayor Mim McConnell and municipal administrator Mark Gorman plan on attending. Gorman, who has long experience as a healthcare administrator at SEARHC, told the assembly that time was of the essence.

“The critical thing is identifying a transition team during this period,” he said. “An actual team that’s moving quite quickly to ensure that there is confidence and stability at the hospital in all patient care functions. And what is the plan.”

Gorman suggested that the transition team answer to the assembly during the crisis, but that ultimately, “the hospital board is responsible for recruiting and hiring a new CEO.”