To the editor:

The thing about a lie is…

… you can’t tell just one. They’re compounding, they feed one another. You have to keep track of what you said and who you said it to. And when a lie is exposed, gaslighting and damage control take its place.

I take no joy in writing this letter, actually I write with a profound sadness. When I took office in January of 2020 one of the glaring problems in Sullivan County finances was the loss of $1 million dollars a month in the operation of the Sullivan County Adult Care Center SCACC.

After hours of exhaustive research – it was clear that in the State of New York counties are not intended to run nursing homes. The Legislature during my tenure then went on to have a search for the best possible candidate to purchase the nursing home.

On a 7-2 vote we chose Infinite Care. The blowback was intense and unrelenting, but we were solely focused on maintaining a nursing home in our county for the residents of our county but not operating to the detriment of the taxpayers.

Cat Scott campaigned on keeping the nursing home open, as did Matt McPhillips, but their actions once elected tell a very different story.

Cat Scott and Luis Alvarez both went to a Dept. Of Health (DOH) hearing shortly after she was elected with the express purpose of blocking Infinite Care from receiving their Certificate Of Need (CON).

They were successful. Next up was the scheme to get on the LDC, one of the key factors that cannot be overlooked. The Democratic-led legislature put Cat Scott and Matt McPhilips on the Sunset Lake LDC for the express purpose of dissolving the LDC and bringing the nursing home back under County control. This was to prevent the $13 million sale to Infinite Care. Now it’s closing because their hostile takeover and sabotage didn’t contemplate the financial aspects of running the SCACC.

Now we are here, experiencing a non-functional government that fights WITH one another in public and private but refuses to fight FOR the people, refuses to be held accountable to the people who elected them and depend on them. One of the most disturbing things about this is how they kept the closure vote secret for five months knowing there weren’t enough beds in the county for everyone. They knew they were going to leave 73 people, minimally, in the lurch. They knew there weren’t 86 jobs for the dedicated, long-term staff. They soldiered on, handing out certificate after certificate while the crescendo built.

The nays didn’t come out and say this is nonsense, what they just tried to do is insane, they didn’t protest or stack the meetings or sound the alarms or even start quietly looking for alternatives.

Instead, one of the 8 legislators that took a vote behind closed doors chose to leak that information to Bill Liblick. And that is when the wheels fell off. Cat Scott lied about the vote, they lied about the gag order, they deflected and posted copy-and-paste statements directly refuted by newspaper article after newspaper article. When Matt McPhillips was appointed to the LDC, he said the legislature should directly oversee the care center. “We want to be answerable to the people,” he said. (as written in the River Reporter on 5.27.24) and now, they refuse to answer to the people.

This was all preventable. The big lie of the budget has fueled every big lie since.

They knew the 2% increase was impossible to fund County operations, but they did it anyway. They knew they couldn’t make sales tax projections, but they projected them as revenue anyway. They knew they were closing the Care Center but kept up the charade of government for the people and by the people anyway for five months.

They violated the very basic principles of their oath and the laws of this county and state, and they didn’t even have the decency to be transparent about it.

Rob Doherty

Bethel

Former Chairman,

Sullivan County Legislature, 2020-2024