{"id":108621,"date":"2015-10-26T15:50:26","date_gmt":"2015-10-26T21:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/referendum-5a-asks-voters-to-ok-hospital-tax\/"},"modified":"2015-10-26T15:50:26","modified_gmt":"2015-10-26T21:50:26","slug":"referendum-5a-asks-voters-to-ok-hospital-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/referendum-5a-asks-voters-to-ok-hospital-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"Referendum 5A asks voters to OK hospital tax"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Georgia
Georgia Morelock answers the phone in the lobby of Southwest Memorial Hospital in 2012.<\/span>Sam Green\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Officials have emphasized that the expansion and facilities upgrade is a crucial avenue to modernizing the county\u2019s health-care infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The 0.4 percent tax \u2013 4 cents per every $10 \u2013 would be applied to money spent in Montezuma County but would exclude certain items like most food purchased in grocery stores, prescription drugs, residential utilities and non-licensed farm equipment.<\/p>\n

Hospital officials have said that a limited sales and use tax was the most equitable way to fund the sorely-needed project, as it would apply to locals and tourists alike.<\/p>\n

The ambitious capital project entails building a state-of-the-art inpatient wing at the 25-bed, critical access hospital on Mildred Road, as well as an ambulance garage with conference space and rooming quarters for EMS staff.<\/p>\n

The existing inpatient wing would be remodeled to house Southwest Health System\u2019s four clinics, which currently scattered throughout town in leased office buildings.<\/p>\n

Officials plan to apply for a USDA loan to pay for $6.6 million of the project and, if approved, the sales tax would cover the bulk of the remaining cost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Georgia Morelock answers the phone in the lobby of Southwest Memorial Hospital in 2012.Sam Green\/The Journal Officials have emphasized that the expansion and facilities upgrade is a crucial avenue to modernizing the county\u2019s health-care infrastructure. The 0.4 percent tax \u2013 4 cents per every $10 \u2013 would be applied to money spent in Montezuma County […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-108621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108621"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=108621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}