By ANDY GARDNER
North Country Now

MASSENA -- The town supervisor says he doesn’t agree with the Massena Memorial Hospital board’s choice of potential affiliates and the Town Council gets the final say in who will be MMH’s permanent affiliate.

On Monday, the MMH Board of Managers released a statement saying they want to pursue affiliation with Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center/North Star Group and Crouse Hospital.

“MMH has chosen the affiliate it wants to work with in the future. We will be discontinuing discussion with other potential affiliates” and work out parameters of affiliation, MMH CEO Charles Gijanto said in a statement given via MMH Director of Public Relations and Planning Tina Corcoran. He splits his time as CEO of both CHMC and MMH.

Town Supervisor Steve O’Shaughnessy said he was blindsided by the MMH board’s vote.

The hospital board on Monday night, after hearing monthly reports and taking questions from the public and press, voted to go into executive session to discuss physician credentialing. That typically involves discussions of matters leading to appointment of specific persons, or discussions of employment history, so the board is within their right to expel the public.

It’s not clear if, after the closed-door credentialing discussion, the board discussed the affiliation in open session or executive session afterward. It was not listed on the agenda as either an open or executive session discussion.

“[Town Councilor] Sam [Carbone] and I were there and we never heard anything about it,” O’Shaughnessy said.

The vote came after it was revealed at the meeting that O’Shaughnessy does not plan to reappoint MMH board chair Scott Wilson when his term expires at the end of the year.

"I'm not going in the direction he'd like, so I'm not going to be reappointed," Wilson said at the meeting when asked by he won't seek another term as chair.

When asked on Tuesday if the Claxton-Hepburn/Crouse affiliation is the way he thinks the hospital should go, O’Shaughnessy replied “No. It isn’t.”

The supervisor said that the MMH board’s vote is only a recommendation, and if the Town Council decides to vote on a different affiliate, that would be the final say.

“It still has to go through the town board,” O’Shaughnessy said.

He does not believe that the Town Council will take action at their Wednesday meeting.

“I can’t imagine that we would. We don’t know anything about it,” the supervisor said. “We met with Crouse once … and sat through a presentation at a board meeting. There’s a lot to discuss. We have a lot to look at.”

O’Shaughnessy also took issue with a claim that MMH board Trustee Paul Morrow made at the Monday MMH meeting. Morrow alleged that O’Shaughnessy contacted members of the board and asked for whom they would vote to recommend as an affiliate.

"I think he called all of us, all the board members and asked us which way we were going to be voting (on a potential affiliate), and if we weren't going to vote with him, then I was against him. I'm not against Steve. I'm against him calling and threatening me if I'm not going to move the way he wants," Morrow said.

“Paul Morrow said I wanted them to go my way. That wasn’t the conversation at all. I just wanted them to do something,” O’Shaughnessy said. “We really haven’t progressed very far. I’m a little disappointed.”

The town still has to hash out an asset transfer agreement with the hospital. It will determine which assets and liabilities stay with the hospital or transfer to the town, and how the town will be compensated for the loss of the hospital as an asset.