Suffolk nursing home sale may face showdown vote

The Suffolk Legislature health committee blocked a vote Monday on the proposed $36-million sale of the county nursing home later this week, but Legis. Kate Browning, the committee chairwoman, called on County Executive Steve Levy to try to bring it to the floor for a showdown vote.

"If the county executive wants to put it on the floor, let him get 10 signatures," said Browning, referring to a discharge petition.

She doubted Levy has enough support to force a vote or the 12 votes to approve the sale. "The legislature has made it very clear we're not selling John J. Foley [Skilled Nursing Facility] to anyone."

Dan Aug, a Levy spokesman, downplayed the impact of the committee vote, noting the resolution was only tabled, not defeated.

"It will remain alive because it will be on the next [committee] agenda," he said, "We don't consider it dead." Levy aides also declined to say Monday whether they would try to circulate a discharge petition.

But the vote was significant because it comes only days before Levy is supposed to present his proposed 2011 budget in which he has raised the specter of layoffs if the sale of the nursing home does not go through.

Budget analysts said the cost of keeping the nursing home open next year is only 31 cents per person, or $7 per homeowner.

The committee voted after a Mastic Beach man, George Barnes, pleaded to keep Foley open because four other local nursing homes had rejected his son as a patient because he was only 37, even though he was in a vegetative state.

Barnes said his son suffered cardiac arrest in Great Britain five years ago and he wants to bring him here to be close to the family.

"John J. Foley is our only hope," Barnes said. "It is truly a place of last resort."

The committee was also scheduled to hear testimony from Stanley Wojciechowski, executive director of the County Nursing Home Facilities of New York, but Browning said he withdrew after Levy's office called the state Association of Counties for whom he works.

Mark Smith, a Levy spokesman, acknowledged that Levy aide Ken Crannell called the association, but said there was no request to stop his appearance but only to alert them the sale was a matter of dispute. "It was their call," he said.