The hospital settlement offer

September 24, 2009

Early last week, Valencia! obtained the hospital lawsuit settlement offer provided to Valencia County by the plaintiffs’ attorney, James L. Sanchez.

We chose not to immediately publish the letter after speaking with the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government; however, we used the letter to guide our reporting.

Since that time, the Valencia County News-Bulletin has detailed the contents of the letter in its reporting and the county commission has voted, “in principle,” to approve this offer.

While the letter is two pages, the offer itself is contained in the three bullet points on the second page.

It’s important to note that the commission hasn’t accepted the offer and is seeking “tweaking” to the language before accepting it. In other words, the language of the offer in the letter might not be what the commission accepts when it votes on the matter at a future meeting.

It’s also important to remember that the contents of the letter have been disputed, at least in part, by Commissioner Ron Gentry, who at the last commission meeting said the letter’s “allegations” weren’t “fair, true, legal or ethical.”

(Valencia! redacted fax data, two phone numbers, one email address, three mailing addresses, and one signature.)

Posted in: Hospital