Controversy surrounding proposed health clinic at Wynn Elementary (LV Sun)

Today's Las Vegas Sun reports on a brewing controversy surrounding a proposed health clinic on the grounds of the Elaine Wynn Elementary School in the Spring Valley area (see companion story from yesterday's edition).

Neighbors are up in arms over the clinic. Yesterday's Sun reports on some of the opposition:

Some people don’t welcome school-based health clinics. Consider the gathering Monday of about 50 residents of the Spring Valley neighborhood to complain about plans to develop a health clinic at Elaine Wynn Elementary, east of Jones Boulevard. Some of their opposition apparently stems from misunderstandings about how the clinics are funded, and who has access to the services.

Some people say they are angry that tax dollars would be going to provide health care — a service seen as outside the School District’s primary mission. Others expressed fear that the neighborhood would be flooded with uninsured adults and children using the clinic as a primary health care provider.

Here are the facts: Virtually no public money is spent either to build or to operate the clinics. The School District provides the land and the utility hookups and pays only for a staff coordinator in the School Community Partnership Office to work with the clinics, which serve youths up to age 18.

Others residents worry about the impact of increased traffic in their area. But the principals of several of the existing clinics said there is no discernible increase during the clinic hours.

Today's Sun reports the proposed clinic is on hold due to a permitting issue. Not only that, another sore spot for the opposition seems to be the lack of communication among school officials to the community and the neighbors.

Sun:

Much of the anger voiced at a Spring Valley neighborhood meeting Monday about a proposed student health clinic at Elaine Wynn Elementary School was directed at the Clark County School District for not having previously discussed the plan publicly.
On Tuesday district officials acknowledged that neighbors of the school were shortchanged on the ability to weigh in on the clinic.

At issue: whether the School District or Communities in Schools, the nonprofit group that intends to operate the campus clinic, should have applied for a special-use permit from the county. A spokesman for the county said the matter is being researched to determine whether the permit is required.

The permit application would have triggered a Clark County Commission public hearing to air the proposal and measure its merits versus potential effects on the neighborhood. Instead, construction of the clinic began several weeks ago without the public hearing and without a special-use permit.

County, School District and Communities in Schools officials say they think the misstep was based on a genuine misunderstanding, and not an intentional attempt to circumvent a public hearing. In the meantime, construction of the clinic has been put on hold.

This one bears watching.

E.C. :)