CARLTON FLETCHER: Spewing hatred of Biblical proportions

“A working-class hero is something to be.”

— John Lennon

Call it Phoebe-gate. Or maybe an attempted Historic Preservation Commission coup.

Whatever, the drama that has surrounded the aforementioned commission’s attempt to force Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital to rebuild the former Albany High/Albany Middle School building that Phoebe owns to HPC-determined standards has been a confusing and often ugly bit of gamesmanship.

While the issue has played out, members of the HPC and others in the community — some of whom have undisguised and long-standing hatred for anything Phoebe — have attempted to force the hospital to rebuild a Living and Learning Community project the hospital has proposed with Albany Technical College to address a dire nursing shortage to, as Phoebe CEO/President Scott Steiner put it, “to 1920 standards.”

As Phoebe officials, other influential community leaders and the community at large, have touted the project’s benefits — to local health care, to the local economy, to economic development — the four members of the HPC have dug in their heels, refusing to budge, even after the hospital system announced plans to painstakingly remove and rebuild the facade of the entryway at a cost of $1 million and add displays that pay homage to the former school building’s history.

While the four on the Historic Preservation Commission — Bruce Capps, Hope Campbell, Jennifer Davis and Bryant Hardin — have steadfastly refused to budge, they’ve been emboldened by individuals Steiner called “keyboard warriors” who have taken to social media in an attempt to vilify Phoebe and city officials who have opposed the commission’s refusal to sign off on Certificates of Approval that would have allowed the Phoebe/Albany Tech project to move forward.

“These people will put the addresses (of Phoebe and city officials) out there, their phone numbers, and they’ll talk about individuals and their families trying to intimidate them,” Steiner said. “What they don’t understand is that we love this part of the world, and we’re trying to make it better. We could do this project somewhere else — two blocks away, in Worth County, on other property we own — but we think this project will have the most positive impact where we’ve designed it.

“We could definitely use the money it will take ($40 million) to do this and focus on the hospital and new equipment, but this project could have a long-standing positive impact on this community.”

Albany City Commissioner Chad Warbington said he is one of the individuals who has had to withstand the intimidation tactics Steiner mentioned.

“I don’t really feel threatened by the nonsense, and I’m certainly not scared of these social media hacks,” Warbington said. “But I have daughters, my mom and dad, other family members who might accidentally see some of the garbage that’s being put out there. It’s so disappointing when people like this try to make these issues personal.”

The City Commission, in a document drafted by City Attorney Nathan Davis, essentially told the HPC that it had overstepped its authority by first refusing to sign off on the COAs and, second, threatening to sue the city and Phoebe to keep the hospital from moving forward with the project. The document, in reversing the appointed commission’s ruling, said it had no legal basis for the action it has taken or threatened.

Which should mean that the issue is settled. Indeed, Davis said Phoebe could, beginning at 5 p.m. Friday, start preparations to move forward with the project, and Steiner said the hospital and its contractor were doing that.

But the anti-Phoebe faction in Albany, most of whom have personal axes to grind with individuals who in the past or currently have worked with the hospital system, are not easily dissuaded. One actually told me recently, “I don’t care what Phoebe does or how much they say what they’re doing is going to have a positive impact on this region, I will never support anything they do. There’s nothing but a bunch of crooks at that hospital.”

The kicker? That person was recovering at the time from health issues that threatened his life. He’s recovering from care he got at Phoebe. Now that’s hatred of Biblical proportions.