Wednesday, December 23, 2009

A season for seniors


Tom Bowman, Angenie McCleary and Lawrence Schoen are members of the three-person Blaine County Board of Commissioners.

By TOM BOWMAN, ANGENIE MCCLEARY AND LAWRENCE SCHOEN

On behalf of all Blaine County employees working conscientiously to serve the public, the Board of Blaine County Commissioners wishes all our citizens and visitors a wonderful and safe holiday season and a rewarding, healthy new year.

At this special time of year, we wish to communicate with you about an issue of the highest importance and dear to all our hearts: the care of our senior citizens. "Seniors" are our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, aunts and uncles. These are the men and women we most admire and love, people to whom we owe so much for creating two great legacies: ourselves and this irreplaceable community we call home.

You have an opportunity now to support Blaine County's senior citizens that, in reality, may never come our way again. It is the opportunity to create a residential center for independent- and assisted-living and acute nursing home care through the Croy Canyon Ranch Foundation. The foundation seeks to build a new facility, to be called Croy Canyon Ranch, which would replace taxpayer-subsidized Blaine Manor in Hailey.

Croy Canyon Ranch will be an appropriately designed, state-of-the-art facility just west of Hailey on about 20 acres. It will be sustainable, both environmentally and economically, and it will become, one day, an essential institution in our community. The significance of the success of the Croy Canyon Ranch project is twofold:

1) It will replace the Blaine Manor acute-care nursing home. Blaine Manor is extremely well operated, but too small to be self-sustaining without significant taxpayer support. Also, it is in an obsolete building;

2) Croy Canyon Ranch Foundation offers a long-term solution to providing a continuum of multi-level, residential care here in Blaine County. It is the only option we have on the horizon for this kind of care.

In truth, only with significant donor support will Croy Canyon Ranch become reality. Time truly is of the essence. The time for your most generous financial support of this project is now. We, your county elected officials, appeal to you in this way, because we want you to understand how strongly we support Croy Canyon Ranch, how critical we think it is to the future of Blaine County families and how rare and fleeting is the opportunity to help it succeed.

The board equally supports the mission of another critical avenue for senior care and assistance: the Senior Connection. The Senior Connection currently provides invaluable in-home care, including various kinds of personal assistance and meals, as well as many activities at the center itself, on Third Avenue in Hailey. The opportunity for capable seniors to remain in their homes is so important to their health and well-being.

The care and support of seniors is different between these two organizations, but the county commissioners want you to know that our community is really at a critical juncture in our ability to establish the full spectrum of senior living options. Please recognize that the ability to have our older relatives and friends live nearby at a special place—Croy Canyon Ranch—with the love, care and support they need to thrive, could be your generation's great legacy.

Please contact Croy Canyon Ranch Foundation: Kathleen Eder at 788-2310 or www.croycanyonranch.com.

Please contact the Senior Connection: Kim Coonis at 788-3468; www.blainecountyseniors.org.




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