PINEDALE – The Sublette County Rural Health Care District Board of Trustees met Wednesday, Sept. 19, to discuss a counteroffer put forward by property owner John Harber about its pending purchase of the Bloomfield site.

The board submitted a final packet to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for its loan application, outlining the scope of and budget for the critical access hospital project. The board also approved a 4-month lease extension for its Pinedale and Marbleton/ Big Piney medical clinics owned by the county.

Harber submitted a counteroffer to the RHCD this month on its proposed purchase contract for the Bloomfield site where CAH construction is planned. Harber proposed changing the language in the existing offer that allows the RHCD to cancel the property purchase if its USDA loan application is rejected, board chair Scott Scherbel stated at the meeting. Harber instead wants the RHCD to commit to closing on the property with or without an approved loan in hand.

The board voted, 4-1, on Aug. 29 to approve the purchase of the Bloomfield site pending USDA approval. The purchase price was $1.1 million, with the Harbers offering half of the cost as a charitable donation. The remaining $550,000 includes a $100,000 down payment from the RHCD and a $450,000 note and mortgage to the seller.

Trustee Wendy Boman told rest of the board she could not approve Harber’s counteroffer.

“If our loan application with the USDA is turned down, we’re stuck with a piece of property,” she said. “What will we do with this property?”

Board secretary/treasurer John Godfrey suggested having board attorney Doug Mason review it and then authorize Scherbel to sign it. Vice chair Laura Clark proposed giving Mason a week to review it and then set a special board meeting to decide how to move forward.

Scherbel urged the board to accept the counteroffer and commit to purchase the land.

“I want to move forward with the (critical access) hospital with whatever it takes,” he said. “If we don’t get funding from the USDA, we can look into state sources and private funding.”

Mason examined the counteroffer and told the board that the Harbers had not signed the document and that it was more of a “draft” than a final counteroffer.

Board members made a series of motions on the counteroffer. None was carried. Scherbel told the Roundup on Thursday that because none of the motions were seconded, the current counteroffer does not affect plans to move forward with buying the property. He added that if the USDA does not approve the loan, the board would revisit the issue at a later time.

The RCHD applied for a loan of $25,461,000 to fund construction of the county’s first CAH, Amanda Key, RHCD practice manager, told the Roundup. Lorraine Werner, Community Programs director at the USDA’s State Office for Rural Development, is expected to make her final decision on the application by the end of this week.

Tuesday, the RCHD gave Werner documents authored by Scherbel and chief financial officer Lorraine Gatzke that outlines how proposed CAH plans fit the county’s needs of the county and are not too extravagant.

“We’re not planning on building the Taj Mahal,” Scherbel said at the meeting.

The forms compare Sublette County’s proposed CAH to existing facilities in Wyoming to show the USDA and the public that it compares favorably with other rural health-care facilities, Key explained.

“We need to assure the USDA and the public that our plans are not too big,” she said, “The forms show how our project is right on track as far as size and scope are concerned.”