An audience of nearly 300 people attended a town hall meeting Monday to ask questions and hear comments from Gov. Steve Beshear concerning the local community and the state alike.
One of those issues facing Somerset specifically is the future of Oakwood, the troubled mental health facility that was taken over by the Bluegrass Mental Health-Mental Retardation board in November 2006.
Beshear told an audience of around 300 people that he is working closely with the Bluegrass board to ensure the facility is granted recertification.
“We’re hopeful that toward the end of August we’ll be ready to move forward with that,” Beshear said. “We want to make sure we’ve done everything we can do before we ask the federal government to come back in and to review where we are.”
Beshear also said the facility has improved significantly since being taken over by Bluegrass. The facility received 24 Type A citations in 2005 and 2006, but Oakwood collected just three more citations after Bluegrass took over.
“I think it is a much better facility than its been in the past,” Beshear said about the facility. “Bluegrass Mental Health-Mental Retardation Board has worked hard to improve that situation.”
Still the facility has yet to regain Medicaid funding, and the loss of certification went into effect in April after an appeal filed by the facility in an effort to regain funding was rejected by an administrative judge.
Beshear assured the audience – which included 100 people with the organization Parents and relatives of Oakwood facility or PROOF – that the facility is one of the top priorities of his cabinet.
“I’m optimistic that we’re going to get there,” Beshear said. “Over the long haul, whether people are in the comm. or whether they have to be in an institutional setting that Oakwood can and should play an important role either way.”
Beshear also discussed tourism in the region, specifically Lake Cumberland, which was lowered in 2007 to allow for repairs on Wolf Creek Dam.
“We’re in constant communication with the Corps of Engineers on the level of the lake,” Beshear said. “And we continue to push as much as we can for them to get to the point where they’re okay raising that level.”
“ We’re not there yet, but I’m hopeful in the near future we will be,” Beshear finished.
When asked about a possible lodge at Burnside Island State Park, which was approved by the legislature two years ago, Beshear said the project is high on his priority list.
“We are taking a comprehensive look at all our state park systems,” Beshear said. “We want to do everything we can to develop that asset to the utmost.”
Beshear also touched on several controversial subjects during the meeting, including the hanging of the Ten Commandments in public schools and government buildings.
Former Gov. Fletcher issued an executive order during his term ordering that the document be hung in public schools.
When asked whether he would support the action, Beshear said he would leave that decision up to the Kentucky Supreme Court.
“I personally from the state’s standpoint am not going to try to get us into a lawsuit or a bunch of lawsuits where I’ve got to spend your tax dollars on litigating that issues,” Beshear said. “We’ve got enough problems trying to educate our kids and get better health care for our people.”
“That’s what I’m going to try to concentrate on and whatever the Supreme Court says we’ll do then we’ll do,” he finished.
Several audience members asked about the limited funding afforded to state programs in the face of a nearly $1 billion shortfall in the state’s budget for the next two fiscal years, such as teachers’ and other state employees’ retirement pensions.
Beshear said he is working to promote preventative health care and wellness throughout the state in an effort to significantly reduce the cost of health insurance for state employees.
“We need to start emphasizing preventative health care and wellness,” he said. “That’s why health care is so expensive.”
Questions were also raised about the K-CHIP program, which offers free health care to children in families that are 200 percent or below the federal poverty level.
Some 60,000 to 65,000 children qualify for the K-CHIP program in the state that aren’t in it, and Beshear said more must be done to give children the health care they need to stay healthy and develop well mentally and physically.
Beshear answered all the questions about the funding with a desire to pull in more revenue to the state, which would allow much-needed money to programs that have received flat funding in response to the shortfall.
Beshear also said the state needs to become energy-sufficient, and he said he has made trips to California and Japan in an effort to bring the biotechnology industry to the state to begin the transition away from foreign oil.
Beshear also said he is studying alternative energy sources such as clean coal, solar power and wind power.
“We can make a huge difference in whether this country can be energy independent,” he said.
Beshear said he is actively seeking ways to raise revenue within the state, despite the fact that his push for casino gambling was rejected by the legislature, along with a significant cigarette tax increase.
“Right now we’re just going to listen and see what people think,” he said.
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At 10 minutes after noon Wednesday, the “boil water” advisory for the Western Pulaski Water District was lifted — almost a full week after the problems began around 1 p.m. last Thursday.
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