Rock Island County board members Drue Mielke and Kai Swanson joined 4 The Record this week. This is the second part of that interview.
One troubling point raised by the county auditor’s financial report surrounds Hope Creek Care Center.
The county wrote-off $2.5 million dollars in receivables to the nursing home.
The facility owes more than $1.5 million to its vendors.
Now the county treasurer says Hope Creek is almost $2.5 million in debt.
Swanson and Mielke discussed how much longer it makes sense for the county to be in the nursing home business and what can be done to make it financially viable.
Deciding what do with the old Rock Island County courthouse continues to be a thorn in the government’s side.
It’s old and rundown.
At issue is whether to demolish it or renovate it.
Estimates for demolition run about $1.5 million.
Renovating the building rings up a roughly $16 million price tag.
Construction is under way to build an annex to the existing county jail to hold most of the offices in the current courthouse.
There’s some question whether bond money issued for the annex can be used to demolish the old building.
Mielke voted against the demolition proposal in a committee meeting earlier this week.
He and Swanson talked about how it is going to be resolved and if it makes sense to renovate the courthouse given the county’s money problems.
Watch the entire discussion in the video above.
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