BURWELL — Open houses are being held across Burwell in the hopes of informing people about a possible new Community Memorial Health Center.
The proposal would place a new facility behind where the current one sites on 8th Avenue. The building has been in operation since the 1950’s and growing elderly population coupled with upgrade needs led to the decision to propose a new, larger facility.
The project is estimated to be about $12 million and be paid for through a USDA 40-year loan. That leads Tim Grashans and company to feel confident it will go thorugh.
“I think once they hear it and they walk through the need, they walk through the age of the facility they look at the funding available, the land availabe, it does appear to be lining up and make sense,” he explains. “Our biggest obstacle and barrier is getting people to attend the meetings so we get an educated ‘yes or no’ vote.”
“I’m okay with an educated yes or no. I don’t have a problem with that. My fear is if we have a lot of people coming in that have not received the education, that vote ‘no’ simply because somebody told them to or they got false information.”
To vote on the proposal, one must be a CMHC member, which he or she can sign up for before the January 25th vote.
Additional open houses are scheduled for November 13th at 9:00 AM in the Burwell Senior Center and two at CMHC. The first is November 19th at 3:00 P.M. and the last is December 8th at 7:00 P.M.
The hope is to have the new facility open by the spring of 2017 at the very latest.
