MONTICELLO – In a highly contentious pair of county legislature meetings on Thursday August 20, the county’s elected officials and residents alike grappled with the news that the Adult Care Center at Sunset Lake has announced its imminent closure. The announcement came the previous day, August 19, in a press release by Sullivan County Communications Director Dan Hust.

After several passionate speeches from residents expressing opposition to the closure, Chair Nadia Rajsz interrupted the public comments to say, “This is a sad day, this was not an easy decision.”

Rajsz said that the decision to close was in part a financial one.

“The Care Center is supposed to be self-sustaining,” she said, “but to date the county has covered $22.8 million in shortfalls with little expectation of seeing that funding returned, and approximately $10 million worth of work on the nearly 40-year-old structure has been identified by our Department of Public Works.”

To answer the question of when and how the decision to close the facility was made, Rajsz offered this explanation: “Legislators and the County Manager’s Office began discussing this possibility early this year. You guys [the legislators] were involved in this, it was transparent.”

Rajsz said that “the majority of legislators” agreed to take this action. She said that the decision was not made public because the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) needed to approve a closure plan, per state law.

“So, gag order or not, [it’s] state law” Rajsz said. “And I’m not sitting in jail for this. That approval did not come until August.”

Rajsz said that the closure is expected to take about 90 days but will depend on how quickly the 93 long-term residents can be placed in other facilities.

“Why not sell the Care Center to another nursing home operator?” rhetorically asked Rajsz. “There is not enough time to start and complete the sale process before the end of 2026… Onboarding a consulting firm took a year, and a sale would likely take even longer,” she said.

Rajsz said the county is working closely with NYSDOH and area nursing homes to find new accommodations for long-term Care Center clients that best fit the needs of the residents and their families.

Rajsz said the 86 employees of the facility will be offered vacant county jobs based on their qualifications and assisted by the Center for Workforce Development in finding employment. As for the Care Center property, Rajsz said county officials have not yet determined a future use.

Legislator Cat Scott contradicted Rajsz’s assertion that most of the legislators were in favor of the closure. She said an executive session was held on March 26 in which it was discussed.

“We went into executive session to talk about contracts,” Scott said. “We had not previously discussed as a group the possibility of closure. We were discussing the financial restraints that we found ourselves in, and those are serious.”

Scott then said that it was a 5-4 vote.

District 9 Legislator Terry Bernardo interrupted Scott to say, “It can’t be 5-4, I was not there that day.”

“Well then, the vote failed,” declared Scott. “I hate to tell you that, because Mr. Alvarez was a ‘No’, Mr. McPhillips from District 1 was a ‘No’, Mr. McPhillips from District 3 was a ‘No’, and Cat Scott from District 5 was a ‘No’.”

District 7 Legislator Joseph Perrello challenged Scott’s recollection: “Excuse me, I think you are talking about a different conversation. We were almost unanimous in doing what we did.”

When asked to clarify the legislators’ conflicting statements concerning the closure vote, Communications Director Dan Hust said: “Legislators (minus an absent Terry Blosser-Bernardo) voted in executive session in late winter to begin the closure planning process with the NYS Department of Health, who mandated that no disclosures be made unless and until DOH approved the closure plan (which occurred this month).” Hust said that the vote to close the facility was 5-3 in favor of beginning the closure planning process.

Scott continued to voice her opposition to the decision. “What happened in that room that day was not considerate and it did not respect the citizens of this county,” she said. “It certainly didn’t take into consideration the residents of that facility, their families, or the staff.”

Rajsz abruptly ended the argument and welcomed former legislator and Town of Neversink Supervisor Mark McCarthy to make a public comment. McCarthy began by saying the Care Center was rated at 5 stars when he was one of the nine legislators.

“That takes effort,” said McCarthy, “and I was at the nursing home every week. I was appalled at that time that there were legislators that I served with that had never set foot in the building. Shocked by it. Needless to say, I’m as upset as anybody that they’re going to close this place.”

McCarthy said his mother was a patient at the Care Center when he was the Neversink Supervisor.

“For 70 years,” continued McCarthy, “the taxpayers of this county have paid for that facility to be there in case their parents, grandparents, somebody needed it! My family needed it. You have the power to do something about it. You do. And I know that because I sat in that seat right there [pointing towards the legislators]. But you’re choosing not to!”