NEWS
Bowie once more without emergency medical care
By BARBARA GREEN
editor@bowienewsonline.com
Starting at 7 a.m. Oct. 6 the City of Bowie will once more be without local emergency medical care as Faith Community Health System closes its emergency room, just a few weeks shy of its one-year anniversary.
It continues a tragic up and down cycle the city has dealt with since Bowie Memorial Hospital closed its doors on Nov. 16, 2015. That closure brought an end to 49 years of successful operation by a non-taxing hospital authority since May 1966.
That painful decision by the board back in 2015 came on the heels of the Nov. 3 election that failed to approve the creation of a taxing hospital district 1,732 to 1,548. About 130 hospital employees lost their jobs and another estimated 300-related jobs within the community were impacted.
This was the second failed hospital district election looking back to a May 2011 election that was defeated 1,644 to 973.
The controversy in this race came from including Forestburg Independent School District with Bowie ISD for the new district. The proposed tax rate offered to voters was 19 cents per $100 in property value and a rate not to exceed 40 cents.
When the hospital board began planning for this election it was announced some $1.2 million was cut from the hospital’s operating budget, while pending Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement cuts also reduced revenue with the hospital facing a cash shortfall of $900,000 in operations that year.
Unfunded federal mandates such as electric record management also hit the hospital to the tune of $1.2 million and had to be in place by 2013.
Those economic problems continued in the years that followed and rural hospitals continued to struggle and many close across the state. When the problems came to head again in mid-June 2015, former longtime administrator Lynn Heller said it is not an accident BMH got into this financial condition.
Read more on the history of the Bowie hospital in your weekend Bowie News.
Members of the Bowie City Council will face a brief agenda when they meet at 6 p.m. on Oct. 13 in the council chambers.
Following routine reports and consent agenda items, the council will consider a resolution authorizing submission of the city’s 2027/2028 Texas Community Development Block Grant application to the Texas Department of Agriculture.
Then council members will consider approving Bob Blackburn for appointment as a reserve police officer with the Bowie Police Department.
Following an executive session, the council will discuss and potentially take action regarding the annual employment evaluations and duties of both the City Secretary and the Municipal Court Judge.
After nearly three months of no rain, Mother Nature brought the showers this past week.
Downtown Bowie rain reports varied from 7 to 8 inches, while the Saint Jo area reported a 10-inch total. The city water plant in Bowie reported 5.55 inches on Sept. 30 with 1.6 Oct. 1-3.
Nocona saw a total of 6.31 inches of rain across Sept. 26 to Oct. 3.
On Oct. 6, Lake Amon G. Carter saw a level of 917.39 mean sea level rising to 81.31% full. Just one week earlier the lake was 73.6% full, while one year ago it was 94.01%. The lake is full at 920msl.
Lake Nocona was 73.7% full at 823.02 on Oct 6. One week earlier it was 70.41% full and one year ago it was 92.41%. The lake is full at 827.5 msl.
By BARBARA GREEN
editor@bowienewsonline.com
One Montague County City has joined the battle against any data centers being built in this county and there is a petition drive underway to urge the commissioner’s court to keep data centers out of Montague County.
At a Sept. 28 called meeting of the Saint Jo City Council, officials unanimously approved a resolution stating its opposition to the “siting, permitting, construction or operation of data centers and similar hyperscale computing facilities within the city limits or the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction.”
City Secretary Debbie Dennis said several citizens approached Councilor Jack Dunn about their data center concerns and he helped prepare a resolution. The council gave unanimous support.
Read the full story in your Thursday Bowie News.
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