Wellness election unsettled

RAINBOW: When the voting was over on August 30th, three members had been elected to the board of directors of the McKenzie Valley Wellness nonprofit. With 80, 73, and 72 votes respectively, Val Rapp, Kelly Shaw, and Jane Wilson were the winners.

Several people who attended the annual meeting at the Upper McKenzie Community Center said they were pleased the process ran smoothly. But Shaw has confirmed she decided on September 1st to resign. So did Joshua Cloke - who was to appear in an upcoming runoff election against write-in candidate Steve Severin.

The results were verified by a five-member election committee but MVW president Val Rapp said it was discovered that one provisional ballot was not counted the night of the meeting. “That ballot has since been confirmed to be valid,” she says.

The organization had planned to first do a recount of all the ballots. Then, the now-validated ballot will be added to the totals. If that count shows Severin has a majority, he will win the fourth board seat and there wouldn’t be a runoff election. With Cloke’s resignation, the issue appears to be moot.

At the meeting, a motion to add a seventh seat to the board was approved. Rapp said MVW is interested in “candidates with some specific skills that we need, such as accounting, or fundraising and grant writing.”

Another motion passed that night called for establishing a bylaws review committee. That group would be headed by one MVW director who would seek other members from the general public. Their recommendations would be presented to the board and later to the membership to be ratified.

Two ballot measures - dealing with how MVW is defined - were approved.

On the financial front, a review of the organization’s accounts showed it has $31,000 in a checking account, $64,000 in a Merrill Lynch account, as well as $210,000 in a money market account that’s dedicated to rebuilding the clinic.

Rapp was asked to describe the relationship between McKenzie Wellness and the Orchid Clinic. At first, she said, a lease agreement was developed so that health care would continue to be offered in the same building the McKenzie Clinic had built in Blue River. That document, she said, limited the use of the building so that it “couldn’t change over to doing a bistro or a gift shop.”

Provisions of the $1.8 million grant MVW received from the state call for a written agreement Rapp said. “It’s very important to have clear lines between the organizations and we will have relationships with other entities too, like the school.”