Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008 | midnight
An argument that will appear on the November ballot against establishing a Hospital Tax District in Boulder City is misleading and inaccurate, hospital officials said.
The argument states that in 2004, Boulder City Hospital purchased a medical office at 999 Adams Blvd. for $700,000 that three months earlier had been sold for $295,048.
The argument then states: "This purchase should justify taxpayers questioning the financial practices of the Hospital."
Craig Bailey, the hospital's director of business development, said the claims are wrong.
He said the hospital purchased the medical office for $700,000 in 2004 as part of a contract with four doctors who owned the building previously.
Clark County assessor office's records show the Boulder City Hospital in September 2004 bought the building from Dr. Joseph Shalev at that price.
The records also show that Shalev and partners Jerry Dye, Michael Reiss and Devin Reiss individually received the property in April 2004 from Boulder City Medical Center Associates as part of dissolving that partnership. The value is listed at $295,048.
Dye, a real-estate developer, said the site was never worth that amount during the partnership, from 1988 to 2004.
"It had never been valued that low," Dye said. "We bought the land and built the building, borrowing $600,000 from the Boulder Dam Credit Union. After all those years of owning it, $100,000 profit is hardly what we had in it."
Dye said it was possible that figure represented the assessed value, not the appraised value.
The building was appraised for $850,000 when the hospital purchased it, Bailey said.
"It's a frustrating thing they put in there and an incredible stretch of the truth," Bailey said.
Chief Financial Officer Charles Harrison said neither Nancy Nolette nor Joe Roche, who together wrote the argument, contacted him about the document before drafting it.
Nolette said she hadn't tried to reach the hospital, because she was under time constraints to submit the argument to the city.
She added that hospital officials denied her access to the hospital's records, and she was not allowed access to the hospital's board of trustee meeting minutes that she requested.
Cassie Tomlin can be reached at 948-2073 or [email protected].
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