Huntsville, TN (2012-01-03) Despite numerous delays in the process to
sign a new lease on the Scott County Hospital, the Community Development
Committee of the Scott County Commission Tuesday night reaffirmed its
commitment to forge an agreement with Pioneer Health Services of Magee, MS,
even after the Letter of Intent to exclusively negotiate with the firm expired
January 1, 2012.
Committee Chairman Paul Strunk noted that the
newest version of the lease proposal submitted by Pioneer, which was received
December 22, 2011, did not include many of the changes that had been negotiated
between the parities in October. “Pioneer says that the changes were not
received by their new attorney, who also changed much of the wording in the
document,” County Attorney John Beaty explained. Between
October and December, Pioneer reportedly employed a new attorney to help broker
the deal.
Last Thursday, members of Hospital Committee,
along with Beaty, met for more than four hours to
examine the new lease document and make revisions to reflect many of the
covenants and conditions previously agreed upon by the parities.
On January 1, 2012, the Letter of Intent to
exclusively negotiate with Pioneer that was signed by the County in July expired. The lapse of the agreement would allow the
County to pursue other interested parties, should any come forward. However,
both Strunk and Beaty strongly stated the County
would not be abandoning the negotiations. “We will continue to work diligently
with Pioneer to try and get this deal done,” Strunk said. “In my opinion, we
need to make some decision, hopefully in the month of January—mid-February at
the latest,” Strunk added.
Since the County is awaiting a response from
Pioneer, no timeline for future action on the agreement was mentioned Monday
night.