Health and music

The Riverside Town Council met at 6 p.m. on Oct. 18 due to having to reschedule as Jan Cook, town clerk and treasurer, was on vacation the week before. During the meeting, Mayor Leroy Stephenson and the council heard from Healthcare Sustainability Project Committee board member Leslie McLinskey concerning the Platte Valley Medical Clinic (PVMC) and Health Management Services (HMS), LLC. The town council also disbanded the Music Festival Ordinance Committee.

“I am here tonight because I was asked to join the board of what’s being called the Healthcare Sustainability Project Committee,” said McLinskey, “that board has been put together to try to figure out how to develop more sustainable healthcare option in the Valley which has really been a bit of a crisis recently.”

McLinskey added she had been asked to join the board so the southern portion of the Platte Valley could have a voice as HMS moved forward on attempting to bring sustainable healthcare to the area.

“I’m a mother with young children, so I have a vested interest. Also, as a teacher at the school, I understand the importance of having good, quality, sustainable healthcare here,” McLinskey said.

She also informed the council that Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) Susan Foley was currently operating a temporary clinic from the Platte Valley Community Center (PVCC) until the clinic was available for her to move into as HMS took over management of the facility.

“HMS is set to assume, right now, as of Oct. 25, but no one’s going to know for sure when it happens until it happens,” said McLinskey.

As she was apprising the council of the current status of the temporary clinic, Cook asked McLinskey a question in regards to obtaining medical records. Following the public notice of closure, patients were informed they could pay to acquire their medical records from PVMC and were later informed, through a press release, that they could have the records transferred to HMS through Susan Foley.

“When this first came out, my husband went in to get our records and it was about two weeks ago. We paid the $40, they told us our records would be in our hands within 10 days,” said Cook. “We called today and talked to a young lady that answered the phone, she said she had no idea when we would get our records, they have to be put on discs. She said she didn’t know how many discs, she’d lost count of how many records she’d need to put on discs before getting them to the people.”

According to Wyoming Board of Medicine’s Rules and Regulations, providers must comply with a patient’s written request “within a reasonable period or no more than 30 days, whichever is shorter.” McLinskey apologized to Cook for the trouble she was having getting a copy of her medical records from PVMC and told the town clerk she could go to PVCC and request a transfer of records from Foley.

In additional medical news, Cook informed the council that South Central Wyoming Emergency Medical Services (SCWEMS) had finalized their contract with Classic Air Medical, which took effect Oct. 9. With the contract, any person who lives within the SCWEMS service area is signed up for the service Classic Air provides. Area residents should expect to see a mailer from Classic in the near future which will contain a membership card.

The other issue to take up a decent portion of time during the town council meeting was the perpetual issue of a proposed music festival ordinance. Following what can be best described as a breakdown of communication between the organizers of WHATFest, former Bear Trap owner Jolene Pavelka and the Town of Riverside, an ordinance was proposed by Stephenson.

Stephenson formed a committee to discuss the ordinance which was composed of council member Katie Cheesbrough, Bear Trap owner Margaret Weber and co-owner of Riverside Garage and Cabins Dana Greenwood.

“It’s been 15 months, are we any closer to getting anything done?” asked Stephenson as the subject of the ordinance came up.

In response, council member Liz Swynarczuk produced a printed ordinance from another municipality, stating “This is an ordinance.” Stephenson responded that he didn’t “want it to look like an ordinance.”

“My question is,” said Swynarczuk, “we obviously have issues surrounding large events in town, but maybe we should be addressing the problem that people have. The areas like noise, parking, this type of thing rather than going after something this big for something that seldom happens.”

“That has been my point since the beginning. If the issues are noise, parking, sanitation, those should be their own ordinances from the town for anything, anything, that comes our way,” said Cheesbrough.

Following continued discussion, which at times seemed to get heated, it was decided by the council to no longer pursue a music festival ordinance and to disband the music festival ordinance committee. It is expected that, going forward, the Town of Riverside may attempt to develop ordinances in regards to parking, noise and sanitation.

The next scheduled meeting of the Riverside Town Council will be at 6 p.m. on Nov. 8 at the Riverside Town Hall.