County commissioners call on public to help plan nursing home

By Nate Giarnese

The county nursing home needs you.Carroll County officials, now plotting potential sites for a long-dreamed-of new nursing home, are calling on the public for help.We're looking for as much input we can get from anybody and everybody, county commission chairman David Sorensen told lawmakers last month.A government planning panel of state reps., home administration and commissioners met for the first time last month to go over early details, including hiring an architect.Panel members will tour newer nursing homes in other counties, forging a vision for a replacement to the county's Mountain View Nursing Home. Officials, dreaming of a modern marvel, have been touting advances from medical technology to recycling systems.Sorensen said green energy advances are looking better every day.Public hearings will be set in north and south ends of the county when there is sufficient new information, he said.Conservative lawmakers at an Ossipee hearing late last month were still scrambling to dredge up private-sector partners to absorb some of the estimated $10-million-plus cost. The new nursing home is now set to be paid for by a taxpayer-funded bond. I for one am not quite ready to let that go, legislative delegation chairman Betsy Patten, R-Moultonborough, said of private investor backing. We have land and we have the ability to make some partnerships.But leading Democrats said it's time to move on. They noted lawmakers tried and failed to bring in private cash and voted unanimously to begin with public funding. There was no viable possibility at the time we looked," Conway state Rep. Ed Butler said.Sorensen said the home could be constructed by 2011, saying he's not a big fan of building in the winter.