MONTICELLO  — District 1 Legislator Matt McPhillips was appointed to the Sunset Lake Local Development Corporation (LDC), the management company of the Care Center, last Thursday, March 21.  

This appointment came through in a resolution that was amended to add McPhillips to the LDC over Lou Setran. The amendment was introduced by District 5 Legislator Cat Scott and the resolution was passed unanimously as amended, 8-0, with Matt McPhillips abstaining. 

This appointment comes nearly two months after David Schneyer was appointed to fill one of the two vacancies on the LDC board. At the first LDC board meeting of the year on January 25, Schneyer was appointed to Vice Chair of the board.

District 7 Legislator Joe Perrello noted that Matt McPhillips is someone who wants to get rid of the LDC and said that it doesn’t make any sense to him that he wants to put on it. 

Scott brought up the idea of dissolving the LDC in the LDC meeting and asked the board if it was something that they would be willing to entertain in discussion. 

LDC Chairman Elwin Wood and Vice Chair Schneyer both told Scott that it is not something that they are in favor of. 

Wood said that he feels they should continue with the LDC as he made apparent when he took over as Chairman and created monthly meetings that weren’t happening before. 

“As long as the county is gonna continue to own that building and property, I think we do need to have oversight on that,” Schneyer said. 

“The county would have oversight if the LDC was dissolved,” Scott rebutted. 

Wood argued that he doesn’t believe that the county should be in the long-term care business for many reasons including the prices it would cost the taxpayers.

Matt McPhillips also shared his thoughts on the matter and sided with his fellow legislator Scott. He said that as legislator now, he can say that a number of the LDCs created by the Legislature have been defunct for years. 

“We as legislators represent the county and we want to make sure that we have oversight ourselves so that we’re answerable to the people,” Matt McPhillips stated. “I feel that we should have the opportunity to take control of [the Care Center] and have oversight directly.”

Scott noted that she believes that the only reason for the LDC to exist is to sell the Care Center. 

“That has not been the will of the people and it’s not the will of the majority of the Legislature at this point,” Scott said. 

However, when Scott asked the board their opinion on a sale, none of the board members said that they would entertain that at this time. 

Thoughts on neglect

LDC Chairman Wood spoke during public comment at the Full Board meeting last Thursday. Wood said that when he did a full tour of the Care Center on March 6, accompanied by the Administrator and Directing of Nursing, he did not see anything out of the ordinary. He said that the staff was polite and attentive to the residents. 

“The Sunset Lake services are not perfect,” Wood remarked. “No facility is perfect. They do not have a level of staff that they would prefer. They do exceed the average at the state-mandated levels, which puts them in better positions than about 70 percent of other facilities in New York State health facilities, associations and statistics.”

As Scott listed everything that can be deemed as neglect at the Care Center and something that she herself experienced with her own mother, Wood questioned why she didn’t remove her mother. 

“Because my mother had dementia,” Scott said emotionally, “and when you removed her from one room to the next it took a minimum of three months to recover. For me to move her from one facility to the next would have destabilized her emotionally and mentally. 

“I didn’t move my mom because it was not in her best interest,” Scott coninued. “But thank you for inferring that my mother’s care and neglect is the result of my decision.”

Wood stood firm on his belief that the Care Center is doing better than Scott and others believe it to be. He also insisted that he has experiences that she doesn’t and based his opinion on the Care Center on one visit to the facility.