ECMC President and CEO Mike Young, who was responsible for reversing the fortunes of the once financially struggling hospital on Grider Street, has been chosen to head Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.

Atlanta’s gain is Erie County’s loss.

Young has a long track record of expanding the quality of care while increasing profitability at the hospitals he’s led. Recently, he’s been a strong advocate for ECMC—a public benefit corporation that provides acute care for the region’s uninsured and underinsured. He also favored building a new, state of the art cardiac facility at ECMC, with the cash the hospital made during the few years he ran the place.

Instead, recent closed-door negotiations led by Judge John Curran at UB’s Farber Hall involving ECMC, Kaleida Health, UB, Erie County, and the entity known as “Newco,” determined (among other things) that the heart facility would go to the Buffalo General medical corridor, where UB has already purchased real estate. Additionally, Delaware North chairman Jeremy Jacobs recently donated $10 million dollars to UB to build the facility—provided it was located near Buffalo General. The agreement, which was forged in a meeting at UB on a Sunday afternoon, was closed to the public and the press and described as a “confidential settlement of a court case.” It had been described as a “miracle cure” less than one month ago in The Buffalo News.

With Young out of the picture, it will be interesting to see how much longer ECMC will retain the more profitable services it sought to keep, and how long they’ll be able to provide their current high level of service to the poorest and most vulnerable members of our community.

Young will start his new job in Atlanta on September 1.

Peter Reese makes an interesting comment on Bruce Fisher’s article about sprawl in this week’s AV:

I actually think the local school districts which come with towns are the biggest part of the problem. They facilitate white flight to these little cocoon communities. If you look at Jefferson County which contains Louisville you will find that the secret behind their regional success is the fact that they always had one county-wide school district. When they got hit with the inevitable segregation lawsuit, there was no Elma, Alden or Orchard Park to flee to. They were stuck with the issues of poverty and racism. Apparently they decided to deal with their problems, rather than running from them.

What are the chances that we will have a single Erie County school district in the next 100 years?

Is that possible? Is it a good idea?

In this week’s AV, I noted Erie County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz’s report on the cost Erie County pays for having some many different municipal governments assessing real property taxes. You can read the news brief here, if you want, or better yet just download the report and read it for yourself.