The Bellefontaine City Council’s rejection of a resolution that would have given a tax abatement to a company who plans to update the Deer Run Apartments on Kristina Drive took a back seat at its regular meeting Tuesday, July 28, to complaints from nurses who work at Mary Rutan Hospital.

Three nurses who work at Mary Rutan Hospital and Rick Lucas, president of the Ohio Nurses Association, all addressed the council during the citizens’ comment portion of the meeting regarding safety concerns faced by those who work in the hospital’s emergency department, especially when dealing with violent patients.

Two of the Mary Rutan Hospital nurses who work in the emergency department told the council they have been both physically and verbally abused by patients in the ED, including being punched, kicked and bitten, as well as enduring threats of further bodily harm from violent patients.

They said the BPD was contacted following several of these incidents, but the nurses report that officers refused to intervene, saying that the officers told them that they, the officers, were under orders not to arrest or take these patients into custody.

OAN Union President Lucas, who works as a nurse at Ohio State University Medical Center, was the last of the nurses to speak. He pointedly said Mary Rutan Hospital, the Bellefontaine Police Department and the city’s administration were failing to address these escalating problems. 

“We can't have people in there getting beat on and hurt, and then having the police walk away and leaving these folks vulnerable and without protection,” Lucas said. 

President of Council Ben Stahler, who noted that he was a pharmacist at Mary Rutan  Hospital for 22 years, said he and the council sympathized with the predicament of the ED nurses. 

However, he related that these types of problems are not in the purview of the Bellefontaine City Council, as the council does not have the power to force MRH to beef up security. Stahler said the staff and union would likely be better served to take these issues up with the MRH administration. 

Nevertheless, Service/Safety Director Wes Dodds agreed to schedule another meeting with all of the those involved, including his staff, the BPD, the prosecutor’s office, MRH administration and the nursing staff in order to work on a plan to address the nurses’ concerns.

The Logan County Chronicle spoke with Lucas following the meeting and his remarks can be found at the end of this story.

In other matters, the single-reading resolution before council at the meeting proposed to give Kristina Bellefontaine LLC a 75-percent, 15-year tax abatement on improvements it plans to make to the Deer Run residential housing subdivision.

No new construction is planned for the development and the company was asking for the tax abatement on renovations only.

But public backlash on recent similar tax abatements given to the Maris Park and Ludlow Ridge developments soured the council on the idea. The resolution proposing the abatement fell by a 4-2 vote, with Council Members Wes Easton, Mick Lile, Devin Palmer and Jordan Reser all voting against the measure. Jenna James and Kyle Springs voted in favor of the abatement.

Council Member Nick Davis was absent from the meeting.

But the bulk of the meeting was taken up by the citizens’ comments portion which took place before the vote on the abatement resolution. 

Two other citizens also addressed the council on different subjects, the first being Bellefontaine resident Barry Clayton who came out strongly in favor of the tabled “golf cart” ordinance.

The so called “golf cart” ordinance, which if passed would allow residents to use golf carts and similar under-powered vehicles on city streets with speed limits of 35 MPH or less, was tabled at the last meeting of council and was not addressed at Tuesday’s meeting. 

Maris Park resident Kathy Williamson, who made her third straight appearance at a council meeting to continue to prod the council into dealing with the flooding problems that are plaguing the developments on the east side of the city.

During the police department update, Chief Christ Marlow also shared his perspective on the golf cart ordinance, noting that enforcement would be a lot to manage especially with staffing shortages.

He reminded residents of two upcoming Police Department events:

The Bellefontaine City Council is scheduled to meet again in regular session at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 11.

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The Logan County Chronicle interviewed Rick Lucas, president of the Ohio Nurses Association, a union that represents the nurses at Mary Rutan Hospital, following the meeting of the Bellefontaine City Council Tuesday, July 28.

During the meeting, Lucas admonished the council and city administration for failing to protect the nurses who work at the hospital. Lucas’ remarks have been edited for clarity, but not for content.

Logan County Chronicle: What are you doing here in Bellefontaine tonight?

Lucas: We're raising awareness of the serious issue of workplace violence that's happening at Mary Rutan Hospital and the serious breakdown between hospital administration, the lack of security, and the lack of response when folks are calling for help from the police department. And what we're being told is under direction of Prosecutor (Crystal) Welsh, people aren't being arrested unless the nurses are beaten and bleeding. 

And that is completely unacceptable. And so we came to address city council to ask for support. We asked for them to convene a group within the next two weeks. That includes hospital administration, the chief of police, frontline nurses to be there as representatives.  

So we need all the parties at the table to make sure that we come up with a good plan to keep everybody safe. 

LCC: What do you expect the Bellefontaine City Council to do? 

Lucas: We expect them to convene the meeting and we expect them to hold city officials accountable. 

LCC: Like whom? 

Lucas: The Chief of Police, who's employed by the city. That's somebody they can for sure, hold accountable. They can also work with us. 

LCC: What do you mean by hold accountable?

Lucas: So whenever the police are showing up and they're not supporting the staff, the Chief of Police needs to intervene. We need to follow up with the city prosecutor.

We can't have people in there getting beat on and hurt, and then having the police walk away and leaving these folks vulnerable and without protection. 

And this is happening a lot here in America. This is happening frequently. We've had over a dozen issues since the first of the year. 

LCC: So that's why you came down tonight, to see if you can get this city council on board? 

Lucas: Yeah, and they can also work with us to pass legislation at the city level to help address workplace violence. 

We saw the city of Cleveland do that, where they escalated (the law). It's a higher level misdemeanor to assault a healthcare worker, and they're taking it seriously. And so we need the city of Bellefontaine to do the same thing. 

Unfortunately, we heard from the safety director, you know, a bit of gaslighting saying that they've engaged in the communication with us. The packet of information that we shared tonight (with the council) demonstrates that we have raised the concerns. We provided the information, and Prosecutor Welsh has ignored our concerns, the mayor has ignored our concerns, and the chief of police has ignored our concerns.