McHenry County Blog

Let's assume everything is on the square at the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board.

OK. Forget about the fixing of the new hospital that Wisconsin's Mercy Health Care System wanted to build in Crystal Lake to compete with local biggie Centegra Health Care System's dominant hospitals in McHenry County.

Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed a new board, didn't he?

Problem solved, right?

No reason to be suspicious when Naperville's Edward Hospital gets turned down for the third time, right?

“Edward contends that the hospital is necessary because of the area's rapid growth and because one-third of the patients at its crowded Naperville campus come from the Plainfield area,”

Chicago Tribune reporter James Kimberly reports.

Edward Hospital admitted projecting that Will County would grow.

Naughty. Naughty.

“...acting health facilities board Chairman Susana Lopatka said population projections are not certain to materialize and even if they did, there would be insufficient demand to support a new hospital by 2015.”

Naturally, nearby hospitals objected.

Just as they did in McHenry County.

Irrelevant, of course, is that Edward Hospital CEO Pam Meyer Davis blew the whistle on Stuart Levine's little shakedown game.

Oh, yes.

“...the board and its staff became contentious at times.”

I'll bet.

The only cure for this regulatory agency is abolition, something I tried, but failed to accomplish in 1993.

No chance of that now.

We are in the age of “government knows best” again.

Maybe we'll end up with another warehouse full of basketballs that won't get given to Chicago kids, just like I was told two days ago that we had in Chicago during Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

Labels: Centegra, Edward Hospital, Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, Mercy Health System, Pam Meyer Davis, Plainfield, Rod Blagojevich, Stuart Levine, Susana Lopatka, Whistleblower, Will County

In the Crystal Lake Mercy Hospital fight, Woodstock attorney and former Metra chairman Jeff Ladd was, of course, on Centegra's side.

Centegra had been dealt a losing hand.

Ladd had apparently convinced Governor Jim Edgar and Senate President Pate Philip to push through the appointment of Ladd's Democratic Party friend Tom Beck as a member of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board. Beck retained the appointment through George Ryan's term and got Tony Rezko to keep him on the board after Governor Rod Blagojevich was elected, giving Rezko a $1,000 contribution for Blagojevich.

ABC Channel 7 reports,

“Beck also told the jury that one of his best social and family friends is Jeffrey Ladd, the Republican former Metra chairman, who now calls himself a healthcare lawyer.“

While on the Blagojevich board, Beck let Ladd know that Rezko controlled five votes on the board.

Although Beck was now the hospital licensing board's chairman, he told Ladd he couldn't help him beat back Mercy Health System's competitive challenge to Centegra's two McHenry County hospitals.

The Daily Herald put it this way:

”But Beck also testified that part of his opposition to the Mercy plan was, at least 'in the back of my mind,' due to his friendship with former Metra chairman Jeffrey Ladd and former Chicago alderman Ed Kelly, both of whom were representing Centegra, a competitor of Mercy.

"'I said (to Rezko) something like,

'How can you do something like that to our friends Ed and Jeff?'

testified Beck.”

When the Mercy Hospital challenge arose, Ladd asked who might be able to get through to Rezko and Beck recommended his cousin, former Chicago Democratic Party ward boss and Park District head Ed Kelly. Ladd hired him, paying him $80,000, presumably on Centegra's behalf.

Ladd said he later ate meals with Rezko and Stuart Levine.

Although state law made it illegal for Beck to talk to Ladd about board business, Beck nevertheless called Ladd the night before the Mercy Hospital vote to alert him of what was going down at the next day's board meeting.

Discussing the Mercy Hospital application, the Chicago Tribune Rezko blog reports,

“Beck said he began to argue with Rezko because two of their mutual friends, Jeffrey Ladd and Ed Kelly, were acting as consultants for a competing hospital group. Beck couldn't see going against them, he told the jury.”

Did you pick up the term “mutual friends” in connection with Rezko's name?

After the board voted, Levine and Beck went to Rezko's office. The Tribune blog reports,

“He said he spoke to Rezko briefly, who told him their friends Ladd and Kelly would be taken care of another time.“

The Tribune article says Beck said,

“Don't worry, we'll take care of Ed and Jeff next time.“

Ladd has been granted immunity from prosecution for his testimony, as was Beck, the man he supported for the IHFPB.

When asked what immunity from prosecution means, he replied that if he told the truth,

“...then there isn't anything coming out of this matter for which I can be prosecuted."

A good play by play account of the trial can be found here at the Tribune web site.

Ladd is up tomorrow again morning.

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The picture of Jeff Ladd on the left and Ken Koehler on the right was found on the McHenry County Republican Party web site.

Labels: Centegra, Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, Jeff Ladd, Ken Koehler, Mercy Health System, Tom Beck, Tony Rezko

The Chicago Tribune wrote yesterday that

the U.S. Attorney’s Office is seeking “to compel Jeffrey Ladd, a heavyweight lawyer for health-care companies who has dealt with the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, one of two boards (Ron Blagojevich rune raiser Tony) Rezko has been accused of illegally influencing.”

Ladd, who lives between Crystal Lake and Woodstock and who was House Republican Speaker and Minority Leader Lee Daniels’ boss at his law firm, also chaired the Metra board while Crystal Lake Metra board member Don Udstuen was accepting bribes from former State Rep. Roger Stanley.

McHenry County Blog has been told that Udstuen, who served as head of Centegra, kept a journal of illegal activities for 10-12 years before he was cornered by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Friday, the Tribune reports, Ladd was granted immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony. He had previously filed a motion saying he would “invoke his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination if called to the witness stand.”

Ladd’s attorney said he wasn’t under investigation.

Until recently, legal practice before the Health Facilities Planning Board was concentrated among lawyers who were close to the administration of former Jim Thompson.

Efforts to abolish the board, which was designed to limit competition among hospitals, has been fought by the industry and its representatives.

When Janesville’s Mercy Health System sought approval for a hospital in Crystal Lake, which would compete with Centegra’s hospitals in McHenry and Woodstock, Ladd represented Centegra. Mercy’s pproval was allegedly obtained by Rezko’s manipulation of the board. More here.

Rezko’s attorney said Ladd was known as a reputable person, the Tribune says.

Mentioned in Rezko’s indictment, according to his hometown paper, was Springfield Republican biggie Bill Cellini. Cellini appeared at a Crystal Lake City Council meeting when developers for the Vulcan Lakes Tax Increment Financing district were being interviewed. You can see part of that appearance in a link in this article; more here. Cellini's group won the contract. After the Rezko indictment came down, he withdrew his personal involvement in the project. Cellini has not been charged with any offense.

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The picture is of Jeff Ladd and McHenry County Board Chairman Ken Koehler. Ladd is on the left. This photo was found on the McHenry County Republican Party's web site.
All images may be enlarged by clicking on them.

Labels: Bill Cellini, Centegra, Don Udstuen, Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, Jeff Ladd, Mercy Hospital, Metra, Roger Stanley, Tony Rezko

The Huntley Village board may have sent Centegra back to the drawing board for its new facility on Algonquin Road, but a truck and men were out drilling on Thursday before the meeting.

From Tom Musick’s article in the Northwest Herald, I gather the trustees just thought the Legat Architects drawings were just boring.

The article reports Centegra plans

an urgent-care center, physicians’ offices, diagnostic laboratory suites and more. The fitness center would include fitness rooms, pool facilities, tennis and basketball courts, and other amenities.

Note the haze in the background. It's soil erosion blown by the wind from bare farm fields.

You can enlarge either the picture of the Huntley Centegra site with sign on the left side and drill on the right or the close-up of the drilling truck.

Labels: Algonquin Road, Centegra, Drilling, Huntley, Legat Architects

When Crystal Lake mayoral challenger Lori Phelps sent out her first press release, my reaction was that it focused too much on getting a hospital for Crystal Lake.

Being an anti-tax guy, I would have put more emphasis on how Mayor Aaron Shepley had led the charge to put lots and lots of valuable commercial into Tax Increment Financing districts.

Had it been my campaign, I would have continued to tag him with the “TIF Tax Hiker” label, because most assuredly all of our taxes will increase as the school, park and other tax districts shift the burden of what they lose in the three TIF districts to the rest of us.

If you doubt that, here’s what District 47 School Superintendent Ron Miller told the Crystal Lake City Council in answer to a question from Ellen Brady Mueller:

“District 47 is going to get its tax money,” he answered. He said that freezing any part of the tax base would lead to a higher tax rate to raise the real estate tax component of the $72 million budget.

“It’s a tax shift. Our job is to point that out.”

He predicted a $9 million shift over the 23-year lives of the three TIF districts.

I would have been critical of Shepley’s welcoming of the Gay Games’ takeover of Crystal Lake on a premier mid-July weekend day.

But Phelps had a different agenda.

Her primary goal is bringing a hospital to Crystal Lake.

She truly believes that Crystal Lake needs a hospital and that her former favorite for mayor, Aaron Shepley did less (much less, maybe) than he should to bring Mercy Hospital to Crystal Lake.

Then, Mercy announces it will try again.

By then, Shepley it’s right before the election and Shepley expresses his support, but says it’s not an issue.

No matter that he continues to be a vice president of Centegra, which would see much of it business drawn off should a hospital be approved for Crystal Lake.

So, knowing how important the “framing of the issues” part of the campaign, I am pretty amazed that Phelps won that part of the campaign.

How do I know?

The first indication was the headline on the Chicago Tribune article about the race.

Take a look at the front page of the Northwest Herald today.

And, remember that the Northwest Herald endorsed Shepley.

The summary of the Crystal Lake mayor’s campaign reads,

Big Mayor’s Race

In Crystal Lake, McHenry County’s biggest town, Mayor Aaron Shepley is being challenged by Lori Phelps, a former Shepley supporter who has criticized Shepley because of his job with Centegra Health System. Phelps said she believed Shepley would stand in the way of renewed interest by Mercy Health System to build a hospital in Crystal Lake.

Without doubt Shepley has won the sign war part of the campaign, especially with developers.

He is the favorite.

He’ll probably win unless Phelps has identified her supporters and has enough volunteers to get them to the polls. (Differential turnout is the name of the game in elections.)

But, what happens four years from now if Shepley wins and Crystal Lake doesn’t have a hospital and, say, Centegra has built a hospital in Huntley.

Might Shepley be vulnerable to the same issue?

I’m sure he will be hoping the issue goes away.

Labels: Aaron Shepley, Centegra, Crystal Lake, District 47, Gay Games, Lori Phelps, Mercy Hospital, Ron Miller, Tax Increment Financing District, TIF

This week I listed a series of issues that could be used in the Crystal Lake city elections. Some were specific to Shepley, but others would be just as appropriate for city council candidates running for re-election.

I learned early on that candidates can try to control what issues are significant in a campaign, but the media and opposition candidates also play a role.

Sometimes a significant role.

When Crystal Lake mayoral challenger Lori Phelps initiated her campaign, her lynch pin was bringing a hospital to Crystal Lake. Read her press release. It’s all about her passion to bring a hospital to Crystal Lake.

She more than hinted that incumbent two-term mayor Aaron Shepley’s less than positive attitude was part of the reason that Mercy had not been successful in bringing a hospital to Crystal Lake.

Phelps, by the way, worked hard to elect Shepley in 1999, when he was a private lawyer, not a Centegra “senior vice president and chief quality officer,” as Chicago Tribune reporter Jeff Long described him in his Friday article.

Who would expect a vice president of Centegra, the future competition of a Mercy Hospital, to champion a major potential competitor?

So, when Mercy announced it would make a second attempt to gain permission to build a hospital at Three Oaks Road and Route 31 across from the Holiday Inn, Shepley told the Northwest Herald that he was in favor and it was not an issue. (See Part 2 of this article, too.)

Now, with the Chicago Tribune running its Friday story entitled,
Challenger assails mayor on hospital,I think even Shepley might admit,

IT IS AN ISSUE.

Reporter Jeff Long says the Crystal Lake campaign for mayor

is a heated one.

You sure could not tell by the sign war, which Shepley, with at least $24,000 to spend, is winning handily.

Tomorrow, the other “not an issue” that the Tribune mentions.

Labels: Aaron Shepley, Centegra, Lori Phelps, Mercy Hospital

In other breaking news, the Easter Bunny is real.

Three weeks before the Crystal Lake mayoral elections, Wisoncosn's Mercy Health System has announced it will try a second time to gain approval to build a hospital in Crystal Lake.

That’s the information from Kevin Cravin’s and Reagan Foster’s Northwest Herald’s story on Saturday.

It will be the same location—south of the Holiday Inn at the intersection of Three Oaks Road and Route 31.

But it will be larger.

128 beds versus 70 before.

One of the objections of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board staff was that the Mercy proposal wasn’t big enough to meet standards in the rules.

That was before the fix was put in by Health Facilities Planning Board member and big (actually, biggest) Jim Ryan contributor Stuart Levine.

What interested me the most in the story was Mayor Aaron Shepley’s reaction.

Shepley is one of Centegra’s Vice Presidents. His enterprise has major economic interests in Crystal Lake, besides whatever skills Shepley brings to his job.

Centegra operates Health Bridge, a fitness center, and medical offices in Crystal Lake.

And, it definitely does not want competition from a new Crystal Lake hospital with its two facilities within easy driving distance of town.

Here’s what the NW Herald reports Shepley had to say:

If they follow the rules and meet the state regulations and they don’t taint the process with the same corruption that the last process was tainted with, I will support it 100 percent.

At least he didn’t say “1000%,” as Democratic Presidential candidate Eugene McGovern said of how much he supported his vice presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton. Two weeks after Eagleton was nominated McGovern dumped him from the 1972 ticket in favor of Sergent Shriver.

Not coincidentally, Lori Phelps—Shepley’s opponent for mayor—made getting a hospital in Crystal Lake one of her big issues when she announced her opposition to the man she worked hard to elect eight years ago.

Read Part 2, which appears tomorrow.

Labels: Aaron Shepley, Centegra, Crystal Lake, Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, Mercy Hospital, Nick Hurtgen, Stuart Levine

For illegally prescribing 62 million controlled substance, Crystal Lake doctor Michael Millette has been sentenced to over 3 years in jail by Cedar Rapids Federal Chief Judge Linda R. Reade.

The $1.6 million he made was ordered forfeited.

Millette pled guilty July 14 last year and was sentenced Jan. 11th. His date to report to prison has not yet been set.

Acting Cedar Rapids U.S. Attorney Judith Whetstine office’s press release says,

Millette admitted he prescribed more than 62 million Schedule III and Schedule IV dosage units illegally over the Internet.

Such drugs include Vicodin, Tylenol with Codeine, Xanax and Valium.

“It is illegal for a doctor to prescribe controlled substances unless the prescription is based on a legitimate doctor/patient relationship,” as the press release says.

The 46-year old Millette was sentenced to 41 months in prison and was the 9th doctor sentenced in the nationwide Drug Enforcement Administration internet probe. He received the longest sentence of any of the physicians thus far sentenced and he is forfeiting—by far—the most money.

His Illinois license to practice medicine was suspended in November of 2004 for prescribing and selling cnotrolled substances over the internet while his DEA certificates were suspended. (Click to enlarge image.)

The web site Health Grades says,

An Emergency Medicine Doctor / Intensivist in Arlington Heights, Illinois (IL)

Dr. Millette practices Emergency Medicine in Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove, Lake Zurich, McHenry, Schaumburg, and Woodstock, Illinois. Dr. Michael Millette, a male, graduated from the University Of Illinois College Of Medicine with a MD.

Presumably he worked in Centegra's emergency rooms in Woodstock and McHenry, but Centegra did not return my phone call.

Last year’s phone book lists Millette Marketing at 5709 Chris Lane in Crystal Lake. The number has been disconnected.

This web site connected to Indiana University provides the following information for what appears to be a “get rich quick” scheme:

PLACE YOUR ORDER FOR THESE REPORTS NOW.

REPORT #1 "The Insiders Guide to Sending Bulk E-mail on the
Internet"

ORDER REPORT #1 FROM:

Michael Millette
5709 Chris Lane
Crystal Lake, IL 60014

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The satellite photo of the home on Chris Lane, which is east of Route 31 between Terra Cotta and East Crystal Lake Road is from Google.

Labels: Cedar Rapids, Centegra, DEA, Emergency Room, Judith Whetstine, Linda R. Reade, Michael Millette, Prescriptions, Schedule III, Schedule IV, Spam, U.S. Attorney, Valium, Vicodin. Xanax