To the Editor:
I would like to publicly thank Dr. McCandless for his guest commentary in the last Sentinel. It’s obvious that he still has his heart in this community that he faithfully served for so many years. I particularly like his opening statement that he has always considered his patients and the community to be his employers. This coincides with my own belief that the people of Wrangell own our medical center. ALL the people. And, therefore, ALL the people are responsible for “fixing” the dysfunction that he wrote about.
By the time this letter comes out in the paper we will know if the people have elected me to serve as a member of the WMC board of directors for the next 4 years. I appreciate the support and trust of everyone who voted for me, but either way I intend to take an active part in trying to effect change the culture that Dr. McCandless described in the peoples’ facility.
We finally have an interim administrator on site. In my mind, his primary job is to focus on making sure that WMC provides the best patient care possible. But I also believe that staff morale greatly impacts patient care. I do plan to let him know that I continue to receive allegations of the abuse and bullying of WMC staff by “the second tier of management.” I believe this whole situation needs to be fully investigated. If abuse and bullying is substantiated in our facility, it needs to stop immediately.
I may be stepping on some toes, but I have not spent the last 20 + years of my life working diligently to fight abuse in families and relationships to sit back and ignore what is allegedly still going on at the peoples’ medical facility. I have never been one to merely hope that someone else will fix the problem.
All WMC employees need to feel that they work in a safe environment so they can focus on one thing: providing the best patient care possible.
Judy Kay Allen
To the Editor:
I am writing this to clarify the information concerning the proposed reduction of the city and borough of Wrangell’s sales tax from 7% to 5.5%. The borough manager has been scaring people about the potential loss of services and/or jobs. The city and borough of Wrangell is not supposed to lobby for or against any voter initiative. I believe this is a state statue.
To understand the expenditures and income of the current sale tax of 7% everyone should log onto the city’s website and look at the general budget to make an informed decision. The only page that you need to look at is the sales tax fund found on page 56. This is the page number in the approved budget but it is not the same on the website.
First and foremost, starting this year July 1 the city and borough of Wrangell has a reserve in sales tax fund of $1,026,888. Total combined revenues and reserves before expenditures is $3,379,388. As you start to read down the list of expenditures you will notice the city and borough of Wrangell is spending another ($500,000) on the downtown revitalization project. Other expenditures included are sale tax audit ($12,000), school ($590,000), pool ($29,000), and general fund transfer of ($1,598,000). After adding up the expenditures and transfers, the total amount is $2,729,000.
Then subtract the expenditures and transfers ($2,729,000) from the revenues and reserves ($3,379,388) and you end up with a reserve of $650,388. Lowering the sales tax from 7% to 5.5% will potentially reduce the sale tax fund by $504,000. Using this worst case scenario, this will leave approximately $145,388 in the sales tax fund reserve. Even at the current level of spending, the city and borough of Wrangell won’t have to cut any services or city jobs. The sales tax fund will still be in the positive and people will have more money to spend in Wrangell. Whenever you cut taxes, you will increase economic activity by allowing people to have more money to spend. By lowering the sales tax, it will lower the cost of living in Wrangell. No services or jobs will have to be cut by the city and borough of Wrangell to reduce the sales tax from 7% to 5.5%. Everyone needs to remember this is your money not the borough’s.
Just as a note, the city and borough of Wrangell’s general fund reserves are increasing from $4,199,518 to $4,385,219, an increase of $185,701.
Ernie Christian
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