FROM OUR FRIENDS THE EDGAR COUNTY WATCHDOGS/ILLINOIS LEAKS

May 25, 2016 

BENTON, IL. (ECWd) – During this week’s Franklin County Public Hospital Board of Director’s meeting, as reported by the Frankfort American, the Franklin County Public Hospital district has voted to terminate the contract of its Chief Executive Officer, Hervey Davis.

Frankfort American: “The Franklin Hospital Board voted 4-3 tonight to terminate the contract of hospital CEO Hervey Davis, effective Aug. 31. Two board members were absent from the meeting. Following the vote, Davis told the board that his contract requires a majority vote of the full board to terminate. Hospital Board Attorney Edwina Warner did not have a copy of the contract with her, and Davis would not produce one. Warner said she would have to review the contract to determine whether or not the vote stands. The meeting was adjourned without a resolution.” (here)

After reviewing the Public Hospital District Law, we found no provision requiring a “majority vote of the full board” on personnel contracts, and any suggestion his contract requires it is invalid and contrary to law. Other provisions of the Hospital District Law do required various vote majorities of the full board, but personnel contracts do not. We believe this 4-3 vote is valid and will withstand scrutiny.

In another action of the Board, they adjusted their Public Comment Policy to eliminate their previous provisions of not allowing the public to address concerns about employees and board members by name. I talked about that issue during public comment at the last meeting we attended, and informed them their policy violated the Open Meetings Act and the First Amendment.

We are working on obtaining the video recording of this meeting and will post it here if we can get a copy.

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On the front page of the current edition of Disclosure, we're running the entire article about how this situation unfolded and how Herv has lost his job. A lawsuit brought about by Dr. Timothy Morthland is being examined, as well as what has been leading up to the lawsuit.

The matter of the hospital being mismanaged for years, as well as the board taking advantage of the lack of public input, is being examined in a two-part investigative article, the completion of which will run in the upcoming June Special Edition, hitting the stands this time next week.

Of special interest to people in Clay, Marion and Jefferson counties is the presence in the lawsuit of a familiar face there, Jamie Veach. Many people believe Veach has been a pox on everything he's touched in the healthcare realm for the past decade and a half...and his track record pretty much bears this out. We've covered his exploits at the Clay County Hospital, as an example, as of a year ago, in this article and this article...which you can read if you have an online membership to the e-Edition.

There are still a few of the May-June 2016 issues on stands (we're just selling out everywhere, and have been doing a lot of resupplying this round), but if you have an online membership, you can read the front-pager regarding this matter at this link.

Don't delay...get out and get this issue, or keep your online membership active. If you're reading the free side of the site here, you're not getting IT ALL...the investigative stuff, wrapped around the regular run of crims that mainstream newspapers in the area don't run anymore, is in the PRINT VERSION. Buy it, or read the e-Edition, today!