http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2017-03-28/athens-neighborhood-health-center-closes-westside-clinic?utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=OnlineAthens%20Daily%20Headlines&utm_campaign=012717%20new%20morning%20template

Athens Neighborhood Health Center closes westside clinic

The Athens Neighborhood Health Center, which serves the working poor, the homeless, the uninsured and other underserved populations in Athens-Clarke County and the surrounding area, has closed its westside clinic, leaving two clinics open.

The move comes as the center is struggling with a $200,000 funding shortfall. Facility officials have blamed the shortfall on the intermittent nature of part of its revenue stream — most notably its Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, money from self-paying patients and insurance payments from patients who do have coverage.

While the center can depend on its federal grant funding, local government support, help from the United Way of Northeast Georgia and other sources to arrive on a regular basis, the other revenue sources are less reliable, according to Mae Walter, chair of the center’s board of directors.

The center’s board and center officials announced the ANHC’s fiscal difficulties in February, noting then that they had cut employee salaries by 7 percent and were no longer covering the full cost of employee’s health insurance premiums, an unusually generous employee benefit.

The center’s call for assistance has thus far been answered by Piedmont Athens Regional hospital, which has donated $50,000 to the organization. That’s a good move for the hospital, center officials have indicated, because ANHC can provide care to patients who might otherwise show up in local emergency rooms to meet some of their basic health care needs.

Earlier this month, ANHC officials asked the Athens-Clarke County government for $100,000 as the mayor and county commissioners were discussing potential allocations to local “independent agencies” that get funding from a variety of sources, including the county government.

Mayor Nancy Denson and the commissioners were somewhat cool to the request, wondering how a $100,000 allocation that, if granted, wouldn’t be available until July 1, the start of the county’s new fiscal year.

“My heart is breaking for your circumstances,” Denson told the ANHC representatives. “I’m just not sure what we’ll be able to do for you.”

Mellinda Craig, the center’s CEO, hinted Tuesday that the organization might still be in need of the money as the county enters its new fiscal year. Since the meeting with the mayor and commission earlier this month, ANHC has received $20,000 in insurance and other payments it was due, but that still leaves the center more than $100,000 short of its break-even fiscal need, Craig noted.

And while closing its clinic on Old Jefferson Road will eventually produce some considerable savings for the Athens Neighborhood Health Center, Craig said, for the short term it has created some additional fiscal challenges as ANHC deals with the financial consequences of breaking its lease.

Closing the clinic “won’t completely get us out” of the fiscal challenges, Craig said. She estimated Tuesday that it will take “a few months, if not longer,” to get through the current financial shortfall. In the meantime, the ANHC is working with consultants through the Georgia Association of Primary Health Care, and searching for a chief financial officer of its own.

Craig said ANHC officials saw the closing of the clinic as sending a signal to the community — and, importantly, to any potential donors — that it was serious about addressing its fiscal challenges.

In light of those challenges and ANHC’s search for help, Craig said, “I’m sure that everybody was asking, ‘What are you [tha ANHC] going to do?” to address the clinics’ financial problems.

The ANHC opened its westside clinic in 2015, in a conscious effort to make its services more accessible to the area’s minority population. The decision was made in the belief that many of the people in the area had transportation challenges and other issues that might have made it difficult for them to get to what are now the center’s two remaining clinics — at 675 College Avenue, in the northern edge of downtown Athens, and at 402 McKinley Drive, on the eastern side of the community.

But in a prepared statement on the closing of the westside clinic, center officials noted that the “ANHC has not been able to generate sufficient revenue to cover this new facility.”

While it has closed the westside clinic, ANHC is retaining its full complement of current providers, which includes three physicians and three nurse practitioners, at its two remaining clinics.

“ANHC will continue to provide full services to its existing patient base,” according to the statement, which also noted that the center will continue to accept new patients.

And as it turns out, according to Craig, patients who had used the westside clinic have been making their way to the two remaining clinics, both of which are on Athens Transit bus routes.

“They’re willing to follow us,” Craig said, adding that although the westside clinic has closed, it served a purpose in letting a new segment of the community know that the ANHC was a local healthcare resource.

Before the westside clinic opened, Craig said, many people in that area “had never heard of us.”

Business hours will continue to be the same at the two remaining clinics, with both open to patients from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays, and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fridays.

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I have no idea what this means, but it is controversial within the commission. Do you understand it?  This whole "infill"/complete stress/smart cities thing (and whatever this is) is not being explained to the public as it relates to the future of Athens. 

•900 students? 

•9 acre mixed use development?•Students only or multi-family dwelling? 

•Parking? 

So many questions. 

http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2017-03-08/mark-criticized-rejecting-inclusion-adda-boundaries?utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=OnlineAthens%20Daily%20Headlines&utm_campaign=012717%20new%20morning%20template

The Mark criticized for rejecting inclusion in ADDA boundaries

Athens-Clarke County commissioners on Tuesday approved a proposed extension of the boundaries for the Athens Downtown Development Authority, but not before some of them criticized the management of Landmark Properties for not including their nine-acre mixed-use development The Mark, located between East Broad and Oconee streets, within those expanded boundaries.

Expanding the boundaries of the Athens Downtown Development Authority will allow the authority, which works on economic development and other initiatives in the downtown area, to bring in additional revenue from a special 1-mill property tax levy on business properties within its assigned area. In return, businesses within the ADDA’s area gain access to low-interest, long-term loans, have a liaison with the county government, and can take advantage of initiatives such as a facade grant program that provides funding for storefront improvements.

Because the ADDA, which is governed by a seven-member board appointed by the county commission, was created by state legislation, any changes to its boundaries require action from the Georgia General Assembly. Such issues are handled in the legislature as strictly local matters, and are routinely approved with little controversy. The local delegation to the legislature, which will be shepherding the boundary extension request through the General Assembly, has an informal rule that it must be in unanimous agreement before placing local issues in the legislative process.

In advance of setting its new proposed boundaries — which generally stretch from east to west from Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway along the North Oconee River to Barber Street, and south to north from the Oak Street area to the area of Willow Street and Cleveland Avenue — the ADDA sent letters to property owners within the area in which it wanted to expand to gauge interest in the proposal.

Other than The Mark, only a handful of other properties — a half-acre commercial/office property on Ware Street, two College Avenue townhomes, and a couple of residential properties off Finley Street — opted out of inclusion in the expanded ADDA boundaries.

The Mark, now under construction in the eastern end of downtown, will bring apartments with more than 900 student-oriented beds into the downtown area, along with other retail, commercial and restaurant space. Wes Rogers, president and CEO of Athens-based Landmark Properties, which will be moving its corporate offices into The Mark, has not returned repeated telephone calls to his office seeking comment on the decision not to be included within the ADDA boundaries.

Commissioner Melissa Link, whose district includes most of the downtown Athens area, was among the commissioners who were critical Tuesday of Landmark’s decision not to become part of the ADDA area.

“They’re certainly marketing themselves as the ultimate in downtown living,” Link chided. The Mark’s website does note that its apartments “will be just steps from downtown Athens … and some of Athens’ best nightlife.”

Commissioner Kelly Girtz called Landmark’s decision “a disappointment,” while Commissioner Jerry NeSmith noted that The Mark and its residents will have an impact on the downtown area.

“They’ll be wearing down downtown,” NeSmith said, adding that he hoped Landmark Properties “would take another look” at inclusion within ADDA boundaries.

Mayor Nancy Denson countered criticism of Landmark Properties, telling commissioners and the audience at Tuesday’s commission meeting in City Hall that it was “disturbing to me to hear criticism of a business that’s increasing our tax base significantly.”

Denson went on to say that she has spoken with “one of the principals” at Landmark about inclusion in the ADDA boundaries, and “he has not said ‘no,’ he has said, ‘no, not now.”

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