Storm clouds appear to be hovering over county government, and they are the type that have nothing to do with rains and county roads.
Several special investigators from the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office arrived in the county this week, including some with badges and guns, to look into matters here.
They interviewed several people, including some public officials, and also researched county records at multiple locations.
AG officials, of course, do not comment on what they are investigating, but comments from some of the people interviewed give a hint of at least part of what they are researching: The actions of county officials pertaining to the hospital and to local fire departments.
This newspaper has learned the investigation reportedly includes actions concerning both current and former county commissioners plus state Rep. Eddy Dempsey.
Investigators are also seeking an audio recording of an illegal meeting allegedly made at the District 3 county barn in June 2023.
AG investigators typically review evidence to see if there is sufficient basis for either charges or for a Multi-county Grand Jury investigation.
In this case, their investigation comes at what was already a nervous time for county government, because state auditors are due to arrive next month, and their audit will include a review of how the county has spent federal pandemic money since 2021.
Even before auditors get here, they are asking questions about part of that spending, specifically the $2.2 million that the county spent from those funds to buy 111 acres of land near the Idabel airport.
Those requesting information in advance of the audit are Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd and two state senators, Kristen Thompson and John Haste, who are on the Joint Committee on Pandemic Funding.
They wanted to know if the hospital has involvement in the land purchase for the purpose of building a new hospital, any related project plans, including architectural or engineering documents, and whether there exists any arrangement for the hospital to reimburse the county for the land purchase.
County commissioners used grant money from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to make the purchase of the real estate. The current hospital is on 15 acres, and commissioners were aware that any new facility would likely be smaller than the current one.
State officials learned from hospital officials that the hospital had no role in the purchase, planning or intent related to the land purchase. County commissioners did it on their own.
Further, to this day the hospital has not engaged in any negotiations with the county regarding leasing or development of the property in question, state officials were told.
Neither are there any plans or documents – blueprints or engineering reports – pertaining to a new hospital on the land purchased.
It’s important to note that the timing of the upcoming audit has nothing to do with the presence of the AG investigators here this week.
Moreover, hospital officials want people to know that neither the hospital nor its people are under any kind of investigation, though they have cooperated with the probe being done by the AG’s investigators.
“Last week, McCurtain Memorial Hospital was contacted by investigators from the Oklahoma office of the attorney general with a request to conduct an on-site interview related to an ongoing investigation. That interview was held (Wednesday).
“The investigators clearly stated – both prior to and during the interview – that neither McCurtain Memorial Hospital nor any of its employees are the subject of the investigation. Their investigation pertains to matters external to our organization, and they sought information to aid their investigation.
“The hospital is fully cooperating with the investigation and is committed to providing any information requested by the authorities.”
It’s not known how far back the AG’s office may be investigating.
County commissioners since 2022 have had a tense relationship with Whitfield, sometimes breaking laws and taking other extreme actions to try to gain control over the hospital.
In 2022, commissioners held an illegal meeting on a holiday to cancel the 50-year sublease from the Hospital Authority to the hospital. Then a county employee whose husband worked for District 3’s county barn altered the agenda that had already been posted, trying to make it appear the meeting had occurred on another day.
When she was caught and even photographed making the change, then reposting the altered agenda, she immediately resigned her position in the county clerk’s office, and it turned out she had also altered the copy of the agenda that had already been filed in that office.
County commissioners also worked to get a hospital management firm to operate McCurtain Memorial. The CEO said he had been a longtime friend of then-commissioner Jimmy Westbrook.
After this newspaper asked to see the financials of the other five hospitals the company was then operating, the CEO suddenly said he was no longer interested in managing McCurtain Memorial.
The newspaper later obtained those financials. County commissioners had not asked for them when they brought the CEO where, but the financials showed all five hospitals were financially performing worse with the supposedly expert management company than McCurtain Memorial was with only a volunteer management board.
But after the newspaper asked for those financials, county commissioners conspired with the sheriff’s office to try to lure and arrest Chris Willingham, the son of this newspaper’s publisher, to a county commissioners’ meeting.
A check showed they were planning to make that arrest without an arrest warrant or even the attempt to get one.
Chris Willingham, suspicious of them, did not appear.
Finally, a week before Westbrook and then-District 1 commissioner Chris White were due to leave office, they, along with District 2 commissioner Mark Jennings and two newly elected commissioners, Robert Beck and John Williams, went to the office of Whitfield and tried to pressure him into hiring White for several hundreds of thousand dollars to act as “owner’s representative” on a new hospital.
White’s salary as a county commissioner was only about $50,000 per year at the time.
With White having no background in either commercial building or medical building construction, Whitfield refused, but he also wrote a letter to this newspaper and to the district attorney, telling about the illegal meeting and what commissioners tried to do that day.
No charges were ever pursued against them for the illegal meeting.
It’s not known if the AG investigators are going that far back, or if they are investigating more recent circumstances of behavior by commissioners, who are reportedly meeting once again with Westbrook to decide how to deal with Whitfield and the hospital.
Aided by Oklahoma’s expansion of the Medicaid system, McCurtain Memorial is now in the best financial shape it has been in for several decades. It has several millions of dollars banked, which commissioners know.
In a few years, it may even be able to build a new hospital on its own, without having to depend on a lease from the county.
