Recap of debate on Wishard bond vote (Special Election Today Marion County)

[JTFrog]

http://www.indystar.com/article/20091103/NEWS05/911030367/

During the campaign, officials from Wishard Memorial Hospital have repeatedly pledged that the new hospital they want to build can be completed without the use of any additional property tax money. Marion County Health and Hospital Corp. has posted financial surpluses in recent years and has $150 million in cash saved for the new hospital.

Why Wishard says it needs a new home: The hospital contends that its 17-building campus -- which includes buildings up to 95 years old -- is out of date and needs to be replaced. The hospital says electrical and mechanical systems regularly fail and have caused delays in surgeries and other care, and the current buildings do not have the capacity to be outfitted with modern electrical and mechanical equipment.

Support widespread, but critics emerge: The latest show of support came Monday with a $6 million gift from the Indianapolis-based Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation to the Wishard Foundation. The grant is to help pay the costs of the new hospital.

The project also has many endorsements: Mayor Greg Ballard, all living former mayors of Indianapolis; Indiana University President Michael McRobbie and Purdue University President France Córdova; and business groups such as the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce.

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[Jokerman]

1. K & R!

[JTFrog]

2. Marion County voters overwhelmingly support a new Wishard

http://www.indystar.com/article/20091104/NEWS05/911040358/Marion+Co.+voters+support+new+Wishard

$754M project wins in landslide

On Tuesday night, balloons and confetti fell in celebration of a landslide election victory that clears the way for a new $754 million Wishard Memorial Hospital complex.

Soon -- according to Marion County Health and Hospital Corp. -- the wrecking ball will begin to tear down the vacant hospital and health buildings, between West Michigan and West 10th streets Downtown, to be replaced with an ultra-modern 1.2 million-square-foot hospital complex with roughly 300 inpatient beds.

Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard called the election about 8:30 p.m. Just minutes later, Health and Hospital Corp. Chief Executive Matt Gutwein said the victory revealed much about the city's character: "What it tells us is we have a city that cares, a city of compassion, of decency, a city that looks at every one of our neighbors and cares about those people."

The new Wishard Memorial Hospital will be built with the help of taxpayer-backed bonds. With 318 of 590 precincts reporting late Tuesday, Wishard supporters easily won in all of them -- 32,389 to 6,676, or almost 83 percent approval.