I have a few clarifying comments to make in regard to last week’s editorial. Interestingly, no one contacted my office for any comment relative to the hospital feasibility review. It had been made clear in two Council meetings that I had reviewed these plans.Is the building perfect? No. Does it have years of useful life remaining? Yes! Anyone with some construction knowledge could see this was not an attempt to reuse a building but an attempt to build a new building inside the old one. They moved bathrooms from one corner of a room to another. They moved bearing walls, which is very expensive. They moved the kitchen and a locker room from one area to another.Based on my review (30 years of experience in the construction industry, a certification in Construction Management and Building Inspection Technology and four years experience as a Minnesota Certified Building Official), the original study was an effort to make an existing building, parts of which are a little old, into a new building.Now I may not know as much as this editorial board, but I do have the best interests of the City in mind. It is rational to evaluate the hospital as a positive asset which has remaining value and life.What good can we gain by finding a use for it? First, we don’t have the expense to tear it down and clean up the site. This could cost $200,000-$250,000. I would think that the citizens of this City would want us to make the effort to find a higher use for the building before we spend that amount on tearing it down. This remodeling project can possibly solve several other issues, namely the expansion and parking problems of a couple of local churches and the needs of the Fire Department. The Fire Department currently uses a 40-year-old building that doesn’t provide enough room for its equipment, adequate rooms for training and a long list of other deficiencies. Talk to the fire fighters who protect your homes in the event of a fire or community disaster. Ask them if they need more room; you don’t have to take my word for that.Staff of Rock County government was contacted several weeks ago (Friday, March 11) to ask if they had any interest in looking at a "part" of the building. We are looking at the least amount of remodeling to gain the best possible use for the building with the least amount of investment. This will not involve the whole building and a large portion will be available for other uses. We understand at this point the County is going another direction.Facts are a good place to start when writing editorials but they failed to contact a single member of the city staff to ask a single question. I guess negative journalism (that word used loosely) sells papers. Facts and the truth don’t. Dan Delgehausen,Luverne Building Inspector
