Wicomico Nursing Home Town Hall August 31st 2026

Good evening and welcome to the Wacamacola Nursing Home Town Hall meeting.

My name is Dr. Samuel S. Henry III, and I'll be your moderator for this evening.

At this time, let us welcome Reverend Lewis N. Watson, president of Watchmen of One Voice,

as he comes to set the tone and direction for this town hall this evening.

All right. Good evening, everyone.

[applause]

Thank you so much for coming and sharing in this effort,

as we have a common cause as to why we're here tonight.

And before we do anything, let's seek the Lord in prayer.

So let's bow our heads in prayer.

Eternal gracious God, our Father, as we come before you today,

we are grateful for this community of faith and persons that you've entrusted our community to.

We are thankful for every family member, every church represented, every business, every organization here tonight.

As we gather, Lord, we believe our community can be better.

And we recognize tonight that while we have made progress, there's still work to be done.

There are families tonight struggling. There are people who need answers.

We have seniors who deserve dignity and security.

The neighborhoods who are longing for safety.

God, we look to you tonight.

We look to you, God, for wisdom and direction for the work that lies before us.

We pray tonight, Lord, that you would give wisdom to our elected officials and community leaders.

Remind them tonight that leadership is not merely about holding a position, but about serving people,

giving them the courage to make decisions based not on personal interests or political pressure or popularity,

but on what is just, what is right, what is beneficial for the people they have been called to serve.

Tonight, Lord, as we come, give us unity in the midst of our differences.

While we may not always agree on the methods, but help us to agree on the mission.

We all want safer streets. We all want better for our community.

We all want better for our seniors.

So, Lord, as we come tonight, teach us that we do not have to fit alike in order to work together.

Tear down, Lord, the walls that divide us, walls of race and classism and ageism and politics and neighborhoods and denomination.

Tear it down tonight and replace suspicion with understanding, division with cooperation and competition with collaboration.

Give us tonight compassion for those who are hurting, for those who are suffering,

those who are in the Wicomico nursing home tonight, among other nursing facilities.

Give us, God, the compassion that you had when you walked among the men as Jesus Christ.

Tonight, Lord, we just ask that you be with us.

Let there be no hostility among us tonight, but let us disagree, but not be disagreeable.

Tonight, God, we pray that you let every person gather here as they gather here, leave,

not asking only what can my community do for me, but also what can I do for my community?

And when this meeting is over, may our conversation become commitments,

our commitments become cooperation, and our cooperation become change.

To that end, we invite you, Lord, into our presence tonight.

We glorify you. In Jesus' name, we pray with thanksgiving.

Amen. Can we give the Lord a hand of praise? Amen.

Thank you so much again for coming, as I've already been introduced.

Tonight, we come with a common concern, and that common concern that we have all gathered

from the different counties tonight is concerning the Wicomico nursing home on Booth Street.

Those of you who know anything about the nursing home know that it was initiated back in the early '60s.

That nursing home was designed for not only African Americans,

but any person that would grow old could not take care of themselves any longer

because age had crept up on them, and they had become vulnerable in time.

That nursing home in the '60s was founded by a chapter, a teacher sorority, Phi Delta Kappa,

a Beta Tau chapter under the leadership of a beautiful lady by the name of Agatha Poe,

who could not at that time find a place that would accommodate her for her father.

And those teachers and other community leaders got together with about $500, I understand,

and initiated this beautiful facility, which has over time become a four-star facility. Amen.

Not to denigrate any facility nursing home, but we all know that when you go in Wicomico nursing home

short of this past April, you could tell the difference than when you went into others.

The floors were clean. The staff was friendly. The residents were happy.

They got their snacks on time. You didn't smell urine when you hit the door.

It was a beautiful place.

But since April, a new administration has taken place, and there has been a decline.

And so tonight, as we come as leader of the Watchmen with one voice,

the Caucus of African American Leaders, the NAACP, community partners, volunteers,

churches that meet there regularly to minister to those residents as well as volunteers.

We come tonight because we have questions. We have concerns.

And we want to know why there is a possibility of privatization, possibility of the nursing home being sold.

We have questions tonight because we know that the current administration, the previous administration,

who oversaw that nursing facility had things in place.

Staff was beautiful. Those nurses and orderlies and persons, custodians, they were like family to those residents.

And many of those residents, some of them don't have family, so they forged a relationship over the years.

But since April, with this new administration, there's been a change.

And the change has come about. We don't know why. We have questions.

But hopefully tonight we'll find out why.

We've seen the dismantling, persons being terminated without cause,

to the point that even some are even just called over the phone.

Who calls someone over the phone to tell them that you no longer have a job?

Persons walking around on edge because of people who have authority, mishandled their authority.

And while we may have authority, it's not always right to use your authority.

And so tonight we've come as a common body of concerned citizens to ask questions.

We have a panel before us tonight, and hopefully we can get some answers.

The outsourcing that we see, the sign that we see in front of the nursing home now hiring,

which I don't understand when there were people already in place.

Why would we have to hire when we already had people doing the job?

One thing, persons were not doing their job, that they were deficient, that they were incompetent.

But we all know that was not the case.

And so tonight as we journey through this night with questions,

hopefully directed to our panelists to receive answers.

And we hope that you will, when you have your turn, will come and raise your questions.

Anybody who has lived 60 years or more have known somebody that has come through that nursing facility.

Amen.

And we want our facility back.

We want our staff people back.

We want them put back in place.

We want our residents happy again.

Those residents are at the end of their day, and how sad it is for them to be at the end of their life

and have the level of care that they're given.

And so tonight we hope when we leave here that will happen.

The beauty of the nursing home for me is while Ms. Agatha Pope led this effort,

along with Phi Delta Kappa and other leaders, there was a lady who just recently passed Go Home to Be With the Lord,

who was among those teachers and leaders in that day.

Her name was Cleo Walsh.

She lived to be 102 years old, but became the beneficiary of that nursing home,

benefitting her at the end of her days, and she was able to be cared for and go to sleep to be with the Lord.

So having said that, tonight I hope that we can get some answers,

that we can get through this smoothly and nicely as we possibly can.

I will come at the end to wrap up after all of what you have said.

But let me say this, when we want change, the best way to get it is get out and vote.

When we want change, the best way to get it is to get out and vote.

Our children, our young people, those in college, get out and vote.

That's how you express your disdain, and that's how you make your voice heard.

To sit by and say my voice doesn't count, that's what some people count on.

Your vote does count.

If your vote didn't count, they wouldn't try so hard to keep you from voting.

If your vote didn't count, they wouldn't try so hard to keep you from voting.

So tonight, I'm going to turn this over, because I keep going on, I feel a preacher coming up here.

I'm going to turn this over to Reverend Dr. Samuel Henry.

Let's give him a hand, let's do it.

(Applause)

At this time, we invite Ms. Glenda Sinclair to speak about the history of the nursing home

as it was started by her sorority Phi Delta Kappa Beta Tau Chapter.

Thank you.

Pastor Watson, you did a beautiful job.

I'm going to share about the National Sorority Phi Delta Kappa Beta Tau.

So what I'm going to do is just add two.

My name is Glenda Sinclair, and I am a member of the National Sorority Phi Delta Kappa Incorporated,

which is a professional teacher organization across the United States.

In 1960, March the 12th, Beta Tau Chapter was started in Salisbury.

Under the leadership of Elaine Brown, and Anna Thapote was one of the members who needed health care for her father.

And with that need, she, along with Beta Tau Chapter, started a campaign to find those that could invest

in helping to build a nursing home.

At that time, it was for African Americans, because African Americans were not allowed in nursing homes.

And with $500 back during the '60s, that was a lot of money.

But in 1961, Anna Thapote led Beta Tau Chapter with an initiative to let's build a nursing home.

And they did that, and by the time it was constructed, not only was African Americans invited to be residents,

but also Caucasians.

For those of you that have visited Wicompton Nursing Home, in the lobby, there's a photo of Beta Tau Chapter.

I keep my little photo at home.

And along with that, of the President. But I want to say that these women in the photo in the nursing home

worked diligently to come up with that amount of money to make sure that there were services for residents

that could not take care of their loved ones at home.

My father was one of the residents.

My aunt was one of the residents.

And my dear friend, Cleo Walston.

I visit that nursing home daily to spend time with my friend, my sorority sister.

She was 102 years old when she departed this life.

But she's in this photo.

She originally started, and she ended her life at the same place where she started,

the $500 donation towards building the nursing home.

So I just want to say that it is open. It is clean.

When I go in, I'll bond with the nurses.

I laugh. We have a good time.

The patients, one nurse was the only one that could give her a laugh on certain days when Cleo would not eat.

And then when I would go in, I'd say, "It's time for dinner or time for lunch."

But this is the kind of atmosphere that's needed.

One that's caring. One that's loving.

One that knows that when the nurses or whoever walks into the room, they feel welcome.

That they know that somebody is in there to care for them.

That's it.

David Paul Chapter will continue to support what was started in 1961.

[Applause]

We are a service to the community.

A service to Wacomico Nursing Home.

So, David Paul Chapter, Wacomico County, we have built a relationship with that nursing home.

And that relationship is not to be individualized, but it is to work together

to make sure that we take care of the residents at the Wacomico Nursing Home.

[Applause]

Before we move on, I want to invite Senator Mills.

Up front, if you would like to sit up front on the front row. Thank you.

Any other elected officials, if you care to join us on the front row.

At this time, we invite Councilwoman Shanie Shields to speak to us about emergency legislation measures

that the County Council has taken as it relates to oversight of the nursing home.

Good evening, everybody.

They gave me three minutes to talk, so I'm going to try to condense

the emergency legislation bill number 2026-11.

And this bill came about because we were getting so many calls

about what was going on in the nursing home.

And people wanted to know, the community wanted to know what council could do.

They were calling us.

I got the first call about it, and I made several calls that same day.

We come up with an emergency legislation bill.

And this bill is to add to Charter 49 of the Wacomico County Code

titled "Nursing Home to Establish Rules and Regulations

on the Operation of the Wacomico County Nursing Home,

the Appointment of an Administrator for the Nursing Home,

and the Establishment of a Nursing Home Commission to Aid and Maintain

the Good Government, Health, and Welfare of the County."

Several years ago, before they did the change of the government,

the change from the council to the executive,

they did have a virus report, but it fell through the cracks.

And one thing, the nursing home was doing so fine.

So now we see what's happening, so we have to step back

into controlling what's happening.

And it says, "Whereas in view of sudden and unexpected issues

that have arisen related to the operation of the Wacomico Nursing Home

and the confusion regarding the role of the county executive

and the county council in the operation of the nursing home,

the county council believes that immediate action

to establish rules and regulations on the operation of the nursing home

and to establish a nursing home commission to advise on the operation

of the nursing home is in the public's best interest.

The nursing home administrator shall be appointed

by the county executive with the approval of the county council.

The nursing home administrator will function as the head of the Wacomico County

Nursing Home and also report to the director of administration.

The nursing home administration shall be responsible for the overall management

and obligation of the nursing home.

The nursing home administrator shall fully cooperate

and provide all reasonable information requested

by the Wacomico Nursing Home Commission.

The county executive shall recommend a personnel system for the nurse home

to the county council for approval on or before November 17, 2026, by resolution.

After the public hearing, each personnel system shall have the force involved

upon the recommendation of the county executive, the county council may modify

or revise the Wacomico Nursing Home personnel system

by resolution after a public hearing.

Thereby created and established the Wacomico Nursing Home Commission

to serve in advisory capacity to the nurse home administrator,

the county executive, and the county council.

And there will be seven members on the commission.

This is basically a summary of the emergency legislation.

You will be voting on it on September 18, which is the morning of council,

and I suggest that some of the people here come to the meeting.

That's how you learn what's going on.

In order to find out what's going on, you have to be part of it.

You have to be part of the solution.

And as the rebel gods have said, we need to exercise our right to vote,

and vote your conscience, not your friends.

Vote your conscience.

And that's all I have to say.

[applause]

At this time, we invite county executive Julie Giordano

to speak about the Wacomico Nurse Home

and implementations of staff and facility changes that have occurred.

Good evening, everyone.

This is actually a surprise.

I didn't realize I was going to be in front of everybody, but that's okay.

That's okay.

I have no problem.

I am going to say for a couple of things.

Already tonight there have been some things that have been misspoken about,

and I'm really hoping that tonight serves as a way to serve all of you with the truth.

So first and foremost, where I was on Friday,

Friday at 3 o'clock I was at the nursing home with the resident council.

I sat with the residents, and they were happy.

You know what they were happy about?

They were happy because for the first time they got a warm breakfast.

I'm telling you what they said.

I'm telling you what they said.

Her name is Miss Bradford.

You can go talk to her.

Can we respect her time?

I'm telling you what she said.

They were happy, and I talked to them about, you know,

what are some other changes and implementations you would like to see,

and a lot of them said, "We just want to be out of the news."

So anyway, when it comes to hiring, you know, for the nursing home administrator, okay,

when I came in as county executive there was already an administrator in place,

and I didn't really know much about the nursing home.

I knew we kind of owned the building.

It was hard to determine what the operational aspect was.

We met with the previous administrator about four times a year during budget time,

during our CIP time, which is our capital improvement,

and we were told that everything was fine.

Didn't need anything.

Everything was good.

Everything was good operationally.

When the previous administrator decided to leave,

we brought in a new administrator that was recommended by the previous administrator.

She wrote a letter of recommendation, said that she came highly recommended.

We came in.

We met with her.

Had a great interview.

And after she was put into place, there were some things that she started to uncover,

some things that maybe weren't so great.

And I'm going to tell you, I know there are a lot of you, I know we'll get into this,

but I will tell you, saying things that people were terminated without just cause,

that's just simply untrue.

As a matter of fact, the three people who were terminated,

I actually, obviously not going to say any names,

but actually the state was actually just with the nursing home last week.

If we had not terminated those three individuals, we would have been fined.

When you abuse and verbally abuse one of our residents, you no longer have a job.

And I would hope that every single person in here would want us to terminate someone

who is verbally abusing your mother, your aunt, or whoever.

And we have the receipts for this.

So this is not me just saying this.

Another person was terminated because they did not file an incident report in a timely fashion.

Multiple, multiple times.

You can't have those people working in a nursing home.

This is not me making this up.

The facts that I gave at my press conference--and I was going to say,

I was actually kind of sad because the people who had a press conference outside the nursing home at 11

didn't even bother to come to mine.

I have the receipts.

Well, I would hope.

I would hope.

But why wouldn't you want to see both sides?

I am going to tell you, I support our nursing home administrator.

I am sorry that there are changes that were made.

I'm sorry that she has put in policies that people may not agree with.

But I am going to tell you she has a great rapport.

She had a great rapport with the state.

The state is happy with the changes that she is making.

These will all come out, and the report takes a little bit of time,

but these reports are going to be made available to you.

I think there has been a lot of misinformation out there,

but when I go out and I talk to those residents and they're smiling and they're happy,

I mean, I'm not sure what else I am to do at that point in time.

I'm going to tell you the legislation with the county council has a lot of legal issues, a lot,

not because it's emergency--I don't really think it needs to be emergency,

but that's okay if they feel it is--but there are things that are in our charter

that they cannot create legislation and violate our charter,

and that's what this legislation does.

We all agree there needs to be oversight.

We all agree there should be some sort of advisory board--excuse me, executive board.

We all agree with that.

But you can't have the county council handling the personnel of a county.

That's not how our charter is written.

It doesn't matter who the executive is.

The county council works two days a month.

They can't be overseeing departments and entities in our county like that.

They absolutely cannot.

And I am going to tell you, if they pass this legislation,

there is going to be some legal issues with it.

And I'm not talking about just from our attorneys.

We're talking about from some of the employees' attorneys as well.

So I really think--I don't want to rush things.

I have told them time and time again, we want transparency.

We're trying to work together.

And look, and this is what I said to the resident council,

and I'll wrap up with this, I promise.

The good news is we all want what is best for that nursing home.

We all want--my staff has invested over 100 hours of HR time, of finance time,

to try to help them be successful.

We would not be putting that time and effort into something

if our plan was to sell it or to privatize it.

I would just do it, and really, I can't even do it.

The council has to do it with me, so there's a whole process that goes with it.

We are not looking to sell the nursing home.

We are not looking to privatize.

We, again, have put 100 hours of employee time to try to help this administrator

get the nursing home where it needs to be.

I have the receipts.

I have no problem going over that.

I'm sure some more will be revealed as we go through.

But I want you to know that all of us in this room,

the good news is we all want what's best.

We all need to get in the same boat and row together.

That's what we need to do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Legislation is key as to having facilities run by the state

and local government operate without reservation or issues.

We invite Delegate Cherise Ample-Hughes to speak to us about the legislation

that she and her colleagues have introduced into state legislation.

Good evening.

Thank you, Sam.

It's such a pleasure to be here with you on this evening.

Thank you to the watchmen and all the partners that are in this room.

It's very important to be here to have this discussion.

As state legislator, I wanted to make sure that I could bring you up to speed

on specific legislation that actually I worked on

and actually was able to pass this past session, which was House Bill 945.

The reason I want to make sure we lay the foundation for you to understand

is that the state has the primary oversight agency,

or they are the primary agency that has oversight of nursing homes

across the state of Maryland, whether it's public or whether it's private.

And the Office of Healthcare Quality is the one that does the initial oversight

when complaints come in, which falls under your Maryland Department of Health.

With that being said, while serving in the legislature,

I've heard throughout the years and throughout the state

that there were concerns in nursing homes and assisted living facilities for years

to the tune of 9,000 complaints.

That was very concerning to me.

I used to serve on the Health and Government Operations Committee

in the House of Delegates for eight years.

And health is still a concern for me, it's still an issue for me,

and it will be to the day I die.

What became even more apparent to me is that those concerns

were not technically being addressed.

Sometimes you have to nudge a little when you want some responses,

and sometimes you have to do that through legislation.

And so I sponsored House Bill 945, and that bill in particular,

I first drafted it to be a notification piece of legislation,

meaning that if the state is made aware of a complaint, it's set there.

That was it, right?

And then they would do whatever research they needed to do.

My feeling behind it was that we need to bring it on down to a local level.

We need to make sure that we include our local health department.

With having that additional level of oversight, that additional knowledge,

it really spoke volumes to the fact that we might be able to utilize

our local resources to address maybe some issues that are in our local nursing homes.

That being said, it became a partnership.

The legislation is now in the process of a task force being underway.

They will convene and provide a written report to the General Assembly

as well as the governor on December 1, 2027,

and the final report in December 1, 2020,

and then they'll conclude their work in June of 2029.

I had no idea that this piece of legislation was going to become

so apparent and needed today.

And I say that because look at us, and here we are today.

I am grateful for the partners that I had speak on the legislation.

There were family members that spoke on the legislation.

Some were in Minoka, Marion.

Some were all the way up in Montgomery County,

and they were saying how bad we needed this legislation.

Somebody else has to have some level of oversight.

And today, with my mother being in my common nursing home,

I want to make sure that she and all the residents are getting it adequate

and proper and not just minimum, because I keep hearing that from individuals,

care.

We have to give them our all.

And with that being said, I spoke with Councilwoman Shields.

She called me one day.

I was already in the park at the nursing home,

and she said it's getting ready to be sold and put conversations about it being sold.

Well, I've been down that playbook before when I was on the county council

with a previous county executive.

I said, oh, no, we're not going to do it.

We're going to do what we're doing tonight.

We're going to stand up, and we're going to fight.

Fast forwarding, here we are.

We pulled together to say, okay, the infrastructure, the building itself,

may not be sold, but the systems and the services are being dismantled,

and they're being outsourced.

And that is concerning to me.

We have to maintain the level of quality and care in this community.

And, yes, Wicomico County Nursing Home is the best,

and I want it to stay the best.

And that's why I do want to see it.

And that's why I want to ensure, as I'm close and I'm long,

but I want to ensure that if the county council has a role to play, then play it.

Make it with the county council adopting this legislation

and providing another layer of oversight for our people.

And when I heard tonight, you know, that our residents are the first hot meal,

that's not true.

That's not true.

I can't stand by that.

And last thing I'll say, and Mr. Ury's in the back.

His wife is in the room, my mother.

We bring the trays sometimes to our family members.

I open up the container.

It's a little burgundy container.

The pool is warm.

So I can't stand by that.

So thank you for listening to me.

We have to continue to fight.

And, yes, there are concerns, and that's why we're here tonight.

[applause]

As mentioned in the press conference,

having minimal standards is not what we desire with this facility.

Wacomico Nursing Home has been rated a four-star nursing home,

and the intent is that it remains.

We invite the director of the health department, Mr. Matthew McConaughey,

did I say that right, with his comments concerning the nursing home.

I want to appreciate you all for having me tonight.

I apologize for being a few minutes late at a conflicting

Overdose Awareness Day event.

I got delayed a little bit with the rainstorm.

I'm here tonight just really to listen to everyone in the community,

because this is not just a concern here locally.

This is also a concern all the way up to the secretary of health,

who called and made me aware of some of the complaints

and issues that have made all the way up to her

and asked me to be able to be present here today just to listen,

be able to reference back and be a representative of the department.

As Douglas, for example, Hughes had pointed out, House Bill 945,

that requires a 24-hour notification to myself

any time a complaint has been filed or an investigation has started

for potential harm or immediate jeopardy of a nursing home resident.

So I will be made aware of those instances,

and I can assist and help conduct any follow-up or investigation as needed,

directed by OHCQ.

OHCQ is underneath as a branch of the Maryland Department of Health,

who oversees and regulates nursing homes

and other health care facilities across the state.

So, really, I'm here just to learn more about the concerns.

Anything that you feel is present to make me aware or the state aware of,

I'd be happy to listen and provide that information back to the secretary.

Thank you.

[applause]

Thank you.

Before we move on, I just want to remind you, as Reverend Watson mentioned,

and we have Ms. Angela Morton, with Faith, Hope, and Fear, who's over across the hall

for registering people if you need to register to vote.

Again, if you need to register to vote, please meet Ms. Angela across the hall.

Our comical nursing home has always had great care

and professionalism for our family members in the past.

In part, it goes through the partnerships of other community partners.

We invite Ms. Wendy Catlin to speak to us about the vital partnership

that her church offers to the residents of the Wicomico Nursing Home.

Good evening.

[applause]

My name is Wendy Catlin.

Four weeks ago, when I stood before the Wicomico County Council

explaining just what the Wicomico Nursing Home means to me and my family

and some concerns I had--little did I know I would be sitting here tonight--

to continue to advocate for the residents and staff.

First and foremost, I want to make it perfectly clear

that I am not a politician, nor do I aspire to be.

[laughter]

I'm not here as a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent.

At the August 4th meeting and first thing the next morning, it was apparently clear

this was going to be political.

And yes, political on both sides.

Let me be perfectly clear again.

I'm not a politician.

If you ever hear somebody say that Wendy Catlin is running,

you better run, too, because something big is chasing me.

[laughter]

Let me tell you now, my intentions are still the same as they were on August 4th,

and that's the residents and the staff of the Wicomico Nursing Home.

I've only attended two meetings with reference to this issue,

one being the Council meeting on August 4th

and the other being the County Executive's press conference last week.

I listened to the County Executive,

and I believe it's the Assistant Deputy Director that was there,

to lay out some facts about Wicomico Nursing Home.

Now I'm going to say I do agree with some things that the new administrator has done.

See, my mom was a resident of that nursing home.

I like the fact that the visitor park-in should be in front of the building

and available to all the visitors and the staff parking on the side.

I kind of agree with that.

I also agree that cell phone usage should be limited to break time and lunch time

and not when you're out on the floor.

I mean, I agree with that.

I'm old school.

I also agree that some things need to be modernized and maybe not done by hand.

I would like to clarify a few things, though, that was said,

and I also want to go about--it was said that the activities were stopped.

Well, I would like to clarify that by stating that the activities have not been stopped,

so to speak, or the snacks.

There's just not enough staff to get them down there for the activities.

And before I go into some other facts, I would like to read the definition of the word "illusion,"

a false image, idea, or sensory experience that tricks your brain into believing something

that is not real or correct.

It was stated at the press conference that only three employees had been terminated.

That's a fact.

I agree with that.

However, what was failed to be mentioned, since April,

the medical director who was slated to leave later in the year has chosen to leave earlier.

The director of nursing's last day will be September 11th.

The dietician resigned.

The MSD--the MDS coordinator resigned.

The part-time MDS consultant resigned.

A GNA evening shift resigned last week.

A GNA daytime shift resigned a few weeks ago.

An environmental services worker is retiring.

And I would like to add in my research, there is an employee who has an upcoming interview for another job

and one employee who just interviewed for another job.

Also, another environmental services worker resigned today.

When you add these 11 to the three, the fact that there were three terminated, that's a total of 14.

I don't know about other people, but I feel like--I feel like that is a lot.

That's a lot since April.

Instead of stating that they are just disgruntled employees, the question should be,

why are they disgruntled employees?

I find it hard to believe that someone new came in and made some changes and everyone got mad.

I've been with my employer for over 37 years.

I've seen many, many changes.

I, too, started out using good old paper and pencil.

Today, we have the most up-to-date technology there is.

But each and every time a change was made, we were told of the change, told why the change was happening,

and we were assured they would be there to train us and see us through those changes.

I'm very curious to know how this was handled by the new administrator.

Another fact was touted about how the new administrator had gotten warming mats for the food trays

because food was just coming out cold and wrapped in plastic.

Now, I was there most every evening at dinner time for my mother and aunt.

There were three huge warming carts, and the food was on a tray with a dome covered just like they have over at the hospital,

and a plate was covered for the entree.

And, yes, cold things like pie, cut-up fruit, cake, pudding were wrapped in plastic wrap.

They are cold foods.

Many times I had to go get ice for my mom and her roommates to put in their soups and coffee because it was too hot.

In my research, I have learned a few of the warmers had not been working,

and they are very expensive to replace, and these new mats were purchased.

And that's nice. That's great.

But the illusion was that all food was wrapped in plastic and cold under the previous administration.

It was also mentioned that there was a $400,000 lawsuit.

Now, I've done some research on that.

Yes, there was. There was.

But this lawsuit was while Mary Schwartz was there.

The past administrator, this past administrator, she inherited that.

Okay? There was a lawsuit.

I don't know what it was about. It was COVID testing or something.

It's a little bit over my head.

But the way it was presented at this meeting was, and that's how I feel.

I'm going to tell you, when I left the press conference, Mr. Urbano, I felt really bad because I felt like, "Oh, what?"

But I've done some research.

What wasn't stated was that it was recommended to the previous administrator that they should settle this lawsuit

because it could be racking up even more money.

So the lawsuit was settled.

Now, here's one very important part, I think, that was left out.

The nursing home paid that lawsuit.

Not one dime of county taxpayer money went to pay that lawsuit.

But yet, I'm sorry, but yet our county executive says that there will be a lawsuit if this emergency legislation goes through.

But my understanding is, and I'm sure, well, maybe the person that was involved would like to speak on that.

But I'm just saying.

And I gave you a chance to speak, and I respected you at your, I did, and I would ask the same.

But maybe that's something that needs to be explained because it wasn't explained.

And I digress, and I need to get on here because I don't want to take up.

And then I also, it was about $1.8 million in uncollected funds from Medicaid.

That's a lot of money.

I'm going to tell you, you see this packet of paper here?

This packet of paper, you see how thick it is?

That's what a family has to get together and submit to social services.

Not only was my mother there, my aunt was there.

And I happened to be her power of attorney.

There were two differences.

My mother didn't have a whole lot, okay?

My aunt had some money.

And you all know, if you don't know, in order to be Medicaid eligible,

you can only have $2,500 in assets, okay?

$2,500, okay?

This includes any property that you may own.

This includes any, anything, any asset.

Your life insurance is considered an asset.

So what I had to do with my aunt is I had to spend down that money.

She was self-pay, okay?

Every month I wrote a check to the Wacomca Nursing Home.

And I thank God for the Wacomca Nursing Home because I will tell you,

it was worth every dime, every dime.

[Applause]

So I couldn't take care of her anymore, so they did.

So I spent this money down.

I sold her a little home she had, made funeral arrangements.

You know, it's not a good thing you have to do, but you have to do it.

So about a month before, I knew that her money would be spent down

to meet that eligibility requirement of $2,500.

I went to the billing department and the social worker at Wacomca Nursing Home.

I said, "Okay, I need to apply.

Let's apply." So I applied.

You have to get five years.

You have to go--look back, five years.

Did it? Here's five years' worth, right here.

That's everything, bank statements, everything.

Did that, got the packet ready, took it in.

They sent it over to the Wacomca County Department of Social Services.

I got a call the next day.

They had some questions the social unit person got.

I answered those questions.

They needed another form, and I got it in.

Okay?

That is the last I have heard.

Okay?

I have called--I'm going to tell you this.

It's going to blow your mind.

My aunt's been dead a year, over a year.

It'll be two years to September.

I've never got a letter yet from whether she was denied

or whether she was approved.

Stacy was wonderful from the billing office.

She helped me for about--I guess we went through it for about eight months.

We were calling, and it's in process.

It's in process.

It's in process.

And I tell you all this to say I called Friday.

Once I heard this, the $1.8 million in uncollected funds, okay?

I called, and I was on hold, and I was on hold,

and I listened to that music, and I was on hold.

But I hung in there, and guess what I was told?

It's in process.

So, please, don't blame Y Comicon Nursing Home

for not getting the money that's in them.

You call the state of Maryland on that thing

because I'm sure if it happened to my Aunt Jill,

I'm sure it's happened to thousands of others.

I digress. Let me go on.

See, I don't think the full facts were really explained at the press conference.

I believe politics got in the way at all nursing homes,

and this is the part that really saddens me,

that angers me, and I'm sorry I'm in the House of the Lord

and I'm trying real hard.

At all nursing homes, there's a resident council,

and I would like to read the rules, so to speak,

because in my stack of papers, I found the rules, okay?

Visitors and staff can attend a resident council meeting

only by invitation from the residents.

All facility residents have the right to attend

and meet privately without any staff or visitors present.

Staff members, family, and outside visitors

cannot just show up or attend uninvited.

They must be explicitly invited by the resident council.

While a facility usually designates a staff person

to assist the council or act as a liaison,

that staff member may only join the meeting when requested or invited by the residents.

I was surprised to learn over the weekend that our county executive,

and in all fairness, some families were invited to attend

a resident council meeting last Friday.

I am very curious--I did not say, let me finish.

Please.

I am very curious as to how they got an invitation.

You see, the county executive stated in her press conference

that she only met with the nursing home every quarter.

This told me she wasn't there much.

Now, I don't know what any--I don't know.

She says she was invited. I guess somebody invited her.

I don't know--I do not know what anyone's intentions were

to attend that meeting, nor what was said at that meeting,

but I think it is so very sad that those residents have been brought into this mess.

It's not a good look.

It's not a good look, and I have one last thing to say, and then I will stop.

I hear that there are many, many people from the executive's office

who come and do daily--that have been there daily since August 4th

at the nursing home, since concerns were raised.

I have one question.

When a bullet went through the front door of the nursing home on October 16th, 2025,

how many of these same people that seemed to be so concerned about the residents

went to check on them or the staff?

I can answer that. None. None.

After all--

And I'll say it about the council, too. I'm not just talking about the executive's office. None.

And I know what I'm talking about because you asked the staff.

You asked the staff how many people went over and checked on her after that.

After all, after all, it wasn't this close to an election. Thank you.

[cheers and applause]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Kempley. Thank you. Thank you.

Ms. Wendy Kemp.

As we move on, as we move on, as we move on,

a medical director in a nursing home is the physician responsible for overseeing

and coordinating all medical care, implementing resident care policies,

and ensuring quality and safety across the facility.

We invite Dr. Patricia Johnson, the medical director for Comicon Nursing Home.

[applause]

Good evening. My name is Pat Johnson. I'm a resident of Vienna, Maryland.

So I'm actually one of your neighbors outside of Dorchester County.

But I want to let you know that my passion is your passion and vice versa.

I'm a licensed physician in the state of Maryland. I'm certified as a medical director.

And I'm board certified as a family practitioner.

I have spent 23 years caring for elders.

It's very heartening to see this happen

because what we know is that at the end of life,

what we need is a safe environment, a nurtured environment.

And in order to do that, the people who care for them have to be the same.

Families have to have the same support.

And I always thought when I got to my Comicon Nursing Home in 2020

that this was just the place I wanted to be.

I've served for many nursing homes from Easton, Maryland to Snow Hill.

And it always reminded me of my favorite little nursing home in Cambridge

that worked like this before they were corporatized.

And as we all know, even in our community here,

corporates have bought these nursing homes because they see them as money makers.

And it's really not about money. It's about our frail.

So in 2020, we faced COVID and I joined Comicon Nursing Home.

We got through it. Part of my job was to make sure we had policies and procedures for care

that patients were taken care of,

and that we communicated with people like the health department

because they were our partners in this.

We made it through COVID, but it was a lot of challenges.

There was a lot of fear.

And I'm sure that all of you had the same fears.

Would I die from this?

Every time we go in to care for people, some were dying from COVID.

We feared for ourselves when we tried to care for them.

The staff was amazing, but it was also a very stressful time

because we didn't have many of our own staff.

We had agency nurses who sometimes were not as diligent, perhaps.

Sometimes did not know the resident, and so the care was different.

But I have to say, when our administrator joined us, it came time to get that straight.

We worked with the senior nurses. We worked out processes.

We followed up and built teamwork.

That's the only way we got through that, and then rebuilt that nursing home.

Now, you've heard them say we're a four-star.

I would have hoped we could have been a five-star.

I've worked in five-star buildings, and Wicomico is on their perch.

[applause]

I have to say, the prior administrator really did a great job

adjusting to the needs as soon as we came out of COVID,

getting rid of non-agency staff who had been in there for two years.

They're very expensive. They break the budget.

They almost use it to their advantage to make their own fortune.

But it was a challenge everywhere.

But Wicomico felt like it was a community building.

It was loyalty to the patients, the staff, and the community.

The nursing home stabilized their team over several years.

Take a couple years to get your own staff.

But it ensured that nurses were qualified, that they were compensated,

they were accountable, and then we could begin to focus on things like building census.

Because, let's face it, in order to be able to pay people,

we have to have residents and patients.

And so having people who trust to bring their next family member,

like Miss Wendy, is just great.

And that happens a lot at Wicomico.

What I was so impressed with was how the senior team of nurses

and the senior administrator were always out rounding on the floor,

feeding patients.

Someone was itchy in the chair, they were there to the side.

Let's do something else.

I see smiles knowing that that's what we've done, right?

That is what administrators and senior nurses do.

They lead by example.

So we were at that verge.

I also want to say that Wicomico significantly upgraded their own systems.

Computers, medical software.

So there's a big explanation or there's a big comment that patients' information,

it's in a computer.

We are required to have certain types of other records in case of an emergency.

And they're all in staff-only places.

These upgrades then were followed with upgrades to an old building.

1960s buildings age well sometimes, but we all age.

But I would say that the funding that they were able to save,

it made great improvements.

Even if it's just superficial, it's a block building.

It's a good building.

It's given a lot of time.

But I think that what I understand and have seen over time is that

Wicomico has been operated as a separate fiscal entity,

and they've done well, a good job.

Let me just go to something that I think is really important.

Communication is what is key.

The communication is not a down communication; it's an up communication.

It's between staff and leadership, doctors and leadership,

leadership and families, staff and families.

It's that Venn diagram, that little diagram.

All these things that you see, we have to be working together.

Quality communication brings to relationships, and it takes time.

It takes months and years.

And from that comes trust.

I am not a believer that the corporate approach,

where you focus on corporate things immediately, does anything to build trust.

And when I report, I have communication.

[applause]

A warm, friendly environment, which acts as the home for our elders,

for our families and staff, needs to feel part of this facility again.

At this time, it's very quiet.

It's very reserved, if you've been in lately.

I would say that leadership being active is what's important.

Leadership, having communication with everyone, is important.

What I feel is that dramatic changes, although, as Ms. Katelyn said,

some changes are good.

We never, as people or managers, ever get to our full list of things we want to do in a job, right?

We always have to leave some things done.

Perhaps different communication, more communication, more explanations,

would have all made it feel less uncertain and threatening.

While some may be watching what happened to their valued colleagues

who worked in the buildings for years, very respected people,

have them go through transitions, I would tell you now that the team in the boat

at Wicomico Nursing Home is rocking, and not rocking in a celebratory way,

rocking in an uncertain way.

They're seeking help, and I'm so proud to see everyone in the community standing for you.

I think the bottom line is that it's a disruptive team,

and it shows me that in a very short period, what was stable,

what was the best rating of the nursing home in Wicomico, Somerset, even Dorchester, and Talbot,

was taken down in four months when we had had four and a half years to build this.

It doesn't happen overnight going up, but it certainly can going down.

So my concern is for our residents that they still get care.

What I would ask is that everyone who's a caregiver in here, when we come into the building,

let's focus on the person as we give one-to-one care, because that's what we're there for,

and that's what the society wanted for people being cared for in the nursing facility at Wicomico.

And I hope that we can work through this so that we can have good administration,

we can have changes that are productive for the employees and also for the residents.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

[applause]

Giving your full heart and time to make sure our most vulnerable residents of this county

are taken care of is priority for most employees.

When employees see the residents as family, it hurts when the connection is broken.

We invite Ms. Dolores Jones-Peters to offer some words as a former employee of the Wicomico Nursing Home.

Thank you.

[applause]

Thank you for the opportunity, the opportunity to let you know exactly what happened.

What happened, it did happen, and I'm not sure where I am at the three, because there was actually four.

One young lady was harassed, so she decided after 18 years that she was going to resign

instead of getting harassed or terminated.

However, she did put in her notice, but eight days later, eight days later, she was terminated.

And the answer was, "You can leave now. We're at the end of the day because I'm not paying two people,"

because you see her job was outsourced or actually was remote.

The person is remotely putting in assessments, sending it up to Medicare, Medicaid, signing it,

and it's being delivered electronically.

You never walk into the building.

Some may think that that's plagiarism. I'm not sure, but I'm sure that there is an answer to it all.

What I have in my hand is my termination letter.

My termination letter actually says that on July 16, Dolores Peters Jones--my name is Dolores Jones Peters,

for the record--a Don RN was on call for the nursing department.

At approximately 721, we were informed that a resident had fallen from a wheelchair,

briefly lost consciousness in a sedentary nerve seizure like it.

Emergency medical services were dispatched.

The physician was notified, and the resident's power attorney was informed.

Done. That's exactly how we handled it.

That's exactly it.

Kudos to my nurse.

It says that you did not notify the director of nursing up there

or the nurse and home administrator of the incident on July 16.

On the morning of July 17, you notified the DON during the morning meeting

that the incident had resulted in the resident's hospitalization.

The nurse and home administrator was not present and was not separately notified.

And according to our guidelines, we meet every morning at 9 o'clock.

It is a given.

9 o'clock, we make every report on the on-call person.

When we come in in the morning, anything that happened when we left, everyone was informed.

And I believe I do have some staff members here that actually can agree

or can recall that they did get the notice.

Unfortunately, our administrator is not clinical, and she does not come to the clinical meetings.

However, this information was given that morning at approximately 9 o'clock.

It was reported.

There is no policy that says that Dolores or anyone that's on call

is supposed to let the administrator know face-to-face.

But you know what? Unfortunately, even at that time, on that day,

the administrator already had a target on my back because I did have a private conversation with her.

I did let her know some things that I just wanted some answers to.

Open-door policy.

Open-door policy is that you can come in and you can have a conversation without retaliation,

without having a target on your back, without being harassed, without anything else being said.

It's a private conversation, and it was a very professional conversation.

But in spite of that, she said, "My AIT is here, and she's just like me."

She is the administrator in training.

The trained person is the person that sat in on my termination, not my direct supervisor.

My direct supervisor had no idea that I was taking place, that I was called at home and told,

"You've been terminated, and you cannot ever come back to the building."

What were the grounds? I said, "What was the investigation?"

Because what was asked of me on the 17th was to go and write -- I'm sorry, excuse me, on the 23rd --

go and write a timeline of why you did not tell the administrator that that incident had happened.

I started recalling the facts.

I went home. That morning, I submitted this statement.

And in that statement, I literally had the timeline.

And in that timeline, it said exactly 9.05 a.m.

It was presented to the morning meeting exactly what had happened.

Well, unfortunately, I said, "Who did the investigation?"

I'm not going back and forth with you.

You are never to come back to the building.

Your belongings, send me a list of your belongings.

This is after four years.

As a matter of fact, the 23rd actually was my four-year anniversary.

It was the very day that I was suspended.

So I said, "It's okay. It's okay."

Some people -- I mean, you know, I had someone else's share in the office, and they gathered my things.

They said, "Someone can come pick them up, but you again are not allowed."

We know that some things are just a personal vendetta.

Some things are just an attack.

But I still have, and I do have my termination that actually says,

"The statement was submitted on July the 23rd.

The DOA placed you on suspension in the presence of the administrator in training

and instructed you to submit a written statement that day to both the DON and the NHA.

You did not submit the statement to the NHA as directed."

Never spoke with her, never seen her, and it was never said that there was a deadline to the timeline.

The statement was submitted to the ADON on July the 24th, one day after the deadline.

Submitted to the ADON.

At that time, I was the ADON.

These actions constitute serious misconduct and failure to comply with the facility's incident reporting

and supervisory notification requirements.

Accordingly, your appointment as ADON at Wacompa Nursing Home is terminated, effective July the 28th, 2026.

Employee signature sent via a certified mail on 7/30.

County HR Manager Corey Halston, Nursing Home Administrator Tina Foskey.

Due process, or is it not?

Is that due process?

Our staff attention is important for the continuity of care.

Maintaining a culture that is supportive and inclusive with utmost respect and value.

Yes, communication is the key.

It is the humming of a song or simply the sound of that familiar voice.

Makes a difference in the lives of our residents, our family, our staff.

Effective communication does not threaten but listens.

It does not intimidate.

It builds up relationship and teamwork.

It does not violate your First Amendment rights.

The freedom of speech, whether verbal or written, yet the staff of Wacompa Nursing Home are being spoke to

with disrespect tones and using condescending verbiage.

Why don't you put a smile on your face?

Your body language is terrible.

You're acting like rats.

Is this, my fellow citizens, is this a tactic to eliminate the four-star team?

Divide them, humiliate them, divide them and replace them with a world of technology, remote and outsourced staff?

Can one imagine what our vulnerable yet wise residents will see, feel, hear?

Nothing.

Silence.

Because no one laughs there, no one will dance with them, no one to sit and hold their hands.

Where are they?

Now to date, as you just heard, there are not three, there are not six, there are 14.

14 caregivers, 14 stakeholders, 14 compassionate, dedicated and committed staff members

that have been eliminated by pressure, by choice, and yes, yes, by termination.

Many can only recall that there were only three, but the truth is there were 14 in four months.

Thank you for your time.

All right.

At this time we're going to ask Mr. John Cannon, president of the Wacom County Council, if he had any remarks.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I remember you spoke at our public comments.

We appreciated your words at that time.

Thank you.

I'd like to thank the First Baptist Church and Compassionate Watson for your help in putting this together.

You guys did a great job in your community.

I'd like to thank the community also for being here and making sure that everybody who's coming to the motel

is important to the community.

It was because of the community that the council first found out that we had a serious problem.

We did not know until we had about 20 people come to the council meeting.

This is what it's for.

This is what a county council is for, for people to be able to come to the government and say we have a problem

or we'd like to see something addressed.

And that's what's so great about having the opportunity to work on this body as a county council.

So the people came in, a lot, a lot, and just as you've heard here, very eloquent speaking.

Absolutely, I'm so surprised.

So the council after the meeting, and it was at least 10 o'clock, it may have been 11.

So back in Chambers, I talked to the county attorney, who's an excellent county attorney, Bob Benson.

I said, "Bob, what are we going to do?"

And he goes, "Well, John, we can work on a few things.

We can possibly create a charter amendment to put some oversight into this situation."

I said, "Well, Bob, that's going to take too long.

As the process works, it would go probably passed into November.

Actually, we'd have to go on the ballot in November before a decision could even be made.

Are there any other options?"

He's a good attorney.

He said, "John," and this is what you need to understand when they talk about this legislative bill being a violation of the county charter.

The nursing home is not in the county charter at all.

So there's nothing wrong with this legislative bill.

We were challenged by the fact that this is emergency legislation.

You can't justify this emergency legislation.

I ask you, what is more important, what is a greater emergency than taking care of the elderly and their communities?

So as Shannie said, and thanks to Shannie, could we give Shannie a round of applause?

Before our first meeting, before the public showed up, I'm getting 16 text messages.

I'm getting 13 voicemails.

This is over a weekend, and it's Shannie.

She's very concerned about what's going on.

Not really that many, but Shannie doesn't read.

But my point being is that what we decided to do is to -- the legislative bill will amend the county code.

That way, we can get it done immediately.

And by going through emergency legislation, we can get it done months in advance of what we could do before because we recognize the sense of urgency.

So that's what's on the table.

That's what Shannie read to you earlier.

So what we want to try to do is create a board, or it's either a board or it's a commission, one or the other, that's going to have oversight,

Senate members who are professionals, who can go into the nursing home or talk with the staff or the administrator and say, what's going on?

How are your finances?

We don't want to hear this last minute in these meetings or piecemeal at any other press conferences that the finances are bad or the conditions are terrible.

You don't need that.

You need a board of directors or a commission to keep track of this on a regular basis.

So that's what this legislative bill will do.

The legislative bill also allows oversight on behalf of the executive and the legislative branch.

The reason that is so important, because as I said before, the legislative branch is where everyone in this community gets to participate.

So that's what this bill will do as well.

So that's what you have before you.

This is what we're going to be passing in our next meeting.

This was voted on, and I hope once this is voted on, it's a legislative bill.

It was voted on.

The introduction was unanimous.

I don't know if it will be unanimous when we actually pass the bill itself at this next meeting.

But keep in mind, any legislative bill can be detoed by the executive.

I don't know why this bill would be detoed by the executive.

It's been stated that we might face some type of litigation.

There are no families.

I don't think there are any families that are going to sue the county council for this legislative bill.

It creates oversight and transparency.

If we're going to get sued, we're going to get sued by the state of Maryland.

We don't have enough employees.

[Applause]

If we're going to get sued, heaven forbid, we're going to get sued by any unfortunate patient that has some type of injury or fall.

These are the outliers. You have to take care of them.

And if they find out that any type of injury has occurred within the next two weeks or the next two months,

the county is subject to serious litigation because we did not act fast enough to protect those individuals.

[Applause]

I'm not concerned about the suggestion that we may get sued by individuals or families.

I don't see that happening.

Keep one thing in mind, too.

When you have a veto of a legislative bill, it takes a supermajority of five members of the county council to override that veto.

We already have seven, so why are you going to veto it?

[Applause]

That's not all I have to say.

We're just trying to get objective oversight.

People who are very knowledgeable and understand the business as well.

I would admit -- I may personally admit as president of the council, I don't know everything about that nursing home.

I want a board to tell me exactly how things need to be done, how they need to be changed.

Individuals move differently.

These people right here, I'd put anybody here right on that board today.

[Applause]

So that's all I have.

We presented a legislative bill.

We did it with emergency legislation to get it done as quick as possible because we listened to the community and we're acting on behalf of the community.

I want this to go through.

I want to get it passed.

I don't want any veto.

I want to be able to say we're ready to go.

We're going to have a committee done.

And within, let's say, a month or six weeks, we're back on track.

[Applause]

Thank you.

I'd like to invite the former director of Wacomico Nursing Home to see if she has any comments.

Good evening.

Thank you for coming, everybody.

My heart is in that building with those residents and those employees that are suffering right now.

And it's a travesty.

It's horrible.

And I will correct what you said.

I've never met with the executive.

There was never a quarterly meeting.

[Applause]

Actually, I believe in '22 when you came into office, we invited you to an open house.

'22.

And you came with your associates, assistants, and we were still in COVID, so we all had to mask.

And you came in and you said, "I'm not wearing a mask."

And I said, "You have to.

We're mandated."

And you said, "Well, we're not staying."

So you walked away from the building and you left.

And I left April 3rd of this year, and you never came back in the building.

[Applause]

The number of people you have now didn't come back in when I was there.

Because it's the truth.

When the bullet went through the door in the back, like Wendy said, we took care of it.

We were there at a late o'clock.

There were several of us there to make sure the residents were okay, the staff was okay.

Before we left that night at 8 o'clock, I did send an email, and you did respond the next day.

Say, "It must have been scary."

I said, "Yes, it was."

It was very scary.

Anybody could have been hit by that bullet.

It was 10 after 4 in the afternoon.

No one came.

Nobody came to look at the door.

Nobody came to talk to the residents.

There was no HR person coming over to talk to the employees.

But now, everybody's there.

And I have a hard time with that because that's just not right.

It is just not right.

You know, the leader of the building needs to be on the floor.

They need to know their residents, their families.

[Applause]

We did 90 days and a little more.

That doesn't happen anymore.

And people are afraid.

They're intimidated.

They can't talk to one another.

There's a gag order in there.

It's horrible.

How many people have gone?

14?

Well, there's going to be a lot more going.

Because no one's going to be able to tolerate that.

It's not right.

It is just not right.

And, you know, again, I could go on.

Other things have been said that are true,

but I'm not going to go on to anything else but the things that were mentioned.

Oh, the recommendation, I will say that.

She was the only one that applied for the position.

Her name was given to me by another employee who said she had known her for a couple years.

She did interim work.

I think she was a respiratory therapist.

I said, "Okay."

I said, "Well, then, have her."

She never, you know, had a text or a call with me, but this other person.

And I said, "Well, make sure she gets her, you know, resume into HR."

And a couple days went by, and she said she didn't hear anything.

So I told this person, I said, "Well, tell her to call HR.

I don't know what to tell you."

So she did.

She finally got an interview.

She said to me--it was the strangest interview I ever had.

She said I walked into the room.

There was a round table.

There were several people there.

They talked to me for maybe 10 minutes, didn't really ask me anything, and that was it.

And she said I walked away from there not knowing if I had the job or I didn't have the job.

So I don't know.

Checked her references.

That wasn't my responsibility.

Bunky did ask me to write a note, which I did, to say that I had never worked with her,

that I understood she was a seasoned administrator, and she was a respiratory therapist.

Now, I don't consider that high praise.

That's just qualifications, and I'm going to leave it at that.

[Applause]

Yes, ma'am.

One second, one second.

Ms. Jeremy?

My name is Nikki Hayhurst, and I have been visiting the nursing home since Wendy's mother was there,

and I've made it my mission, my blessing, to go in and see these people twice a week,

sometimes maybe three, special occasions, I'm right there, because they're family.

They're my moms, and I have a lot of them that call my moms.

Roxy, I remember her.

But moms and dads, I do it because that's my calling, but to see the employees walking on ice,

seeing the residents stuck in their rooms because they don't have the staff to get them down to activities.

When this lady was there, there was so many activities, and that dining room was filled with the patients.

[Applause]

And what have you got now?

Nothing.

[Applause]

All right, so then we can keep moving on.

We're going to invite different families to give accounts of their experience of Wicomico Nursing Home.

We first want to invite Mr. Brooks Urie to speak.

[Applause]

My daughter has been a resident of Wicomico Nursing Home for a little over five years.

I'm just waiting for her.

Hi.

All right, taking notes.

Sorry.

Thank you.

[Laughter]

She's been a resident for a little over five years.

I just wanted to call out.

I've heard you and your associates say that members of the community have brought forward concerns

and that rumors are not real, but I'm here.

I'm a real person.

My mother is real, and I have concerns.

Her care has seriously deteriorated over the past few months.

I'll give you a couple of examples.

The time between her diaper changes has significantly increased.

If my parents weren't there, or my father, my family's not there every day,

she wouldn't be getting fed the way that she used to be fed.

But I want to be clear, the people that are working there, all the people that we love that are working,

they are working, working hard.

They're not twiddling their thumbs doing nothing.

There's just not enough people.

Fourteen people leaving, that's the reason why.

The other thing I want to be clear about is Tina Polsky.

She is not present.

She's not around.

She's in her office.

The door is shut.

[Applause]

If you approve, ask her to take you for a tour of the facility.

Ask her to introduce you to the residents and their family.

She can't do it.

Maybe a handful, but she can't do it.

And my last point is, like, that beautiful woman right there,

our facility, our residents, are less safe without her in that building.

[Applause]

Thank you, Mr. Ewing.

Is Ms. Helena Fleming here?

Do you care to speak?

Hi.

My name is Helena Fleming.

They want you to come up.

My name is Helena Fleming.

My mother's name is Jean Morris.

I think a lot of people know my mother.

And I lived in Montgomery County for a lot of years,

and my mother used to talk to me about things that was going on down here,

and I used to always say, "Mom, please just stop talking.

Leave it alone."

But since I've been here, I've figured out why she talks so much,

and she was so upset a lot of times.

So I don't know about -- my mother's only been in the nursing home since November.

My brother and I go over there at different times.

We've been there breakfast.

Breakfast was warm.

She complains about too much food on her plate.

Not that it's cold, not that it's not enough.

She complains about too much food on her plate.

Anytime I ask any of these people anything, they answer me,

and they tell me why, and they make me understand why.

I've never spoken to the administrator.

A few weeks ago, my mom had a salad on her plate after all that stuff with the salads and the disease,

and I got a little upset because I'm like, "Why does she have a salad?"

I didn't understand, so I talked to the nurse.

I talked to the dietician the next day, and she explained to me, you know,

wherever they're getting their stuff from, there's not a problem.

But because my family is not eating salad, we decided we didn't want her to eat salad.

They stopped giving her salad.

It was no problem.

It wasn't a big deal.

They just put on her card, no more salad.

So I don't know where this is coming from, that these people don't do a good job.

They're doing an excellent job at that nursing home.

I had to talk to Dolores when my mother fell,

and my brother and I really wanted her to have a hospital bed.

We went on and on about that hospital bed.

We just were determined not to give up.

But we didn't get one, not because of the nursing home, because the state laws.

You can't, what they call, restrict them.

So we had to understand that it had nothing to do with the staff not wanting her to have a bed.

It had to do with what the state has done.

So I'm so happy to see all these people.

When I pulled up into the parking lot, I was so shocked to see all the cars.

I wish I had brought my daughter, but I'm kind of glad that I didn't bring her because she's not here.

But I hope that we continue to strive to keep what's ours in our neighborhoods.

I hope we continue to do that.

Thank you, Ms. Willming.

At this time, we're going to ask one of my favorite people, Mrs. Mary Ashanti, to come and speak on behalf of the family.

Please come on behalf of the family.

Good evening.

Good evening.

The issue with Wacom Conversion Home is about quality.

Let me put it up here.

Yeah.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay, good.

The issue with Wacom Conversion Home is about quality of care.

And according to COMAR, the bare minimum of one employee to 15 patients is acceptable.

Yes, one to 15 patients is acceptable by law.

That ratio many times leads to employee burnout.

The nursing home has determined -- the nursing home can determine the amount of the ratio.

And the reason why, if they look at the code -- I'm trying to find my page.

Okay, there is a medical necessity.

That's what I want to talk to you about.

Just recently on Facebook, and I hope it's still there, Pastor Harmon talked about this bare minimum.

And he said, do we really want bare minimum, one to 15?

Do we really want that when it comes to taking care of our patients?

And it's true, bare minimum will cause people to burn out.

But the nursing home can apply for more help if they use medical necessity.

That means that the health care services or supplies needed to diagnose or treat an illness, injury, condition,

or disease are the symptoms under acceptable standards of medicine.

But it's up to the nursing home and doctors and whatever to apply for it.

It's up to them to say, it's not acceptable for us to do one to 15.

That's not what we want to do.

Why Comicon Nursing Home needs to apply for that.

Just on the hallway where my mother is, there are several people that need assistance.

One person can't take care.

One person can't do that.

And I'll tell you why one person can't do that.

And I didn't make a big stink, but about May the 3rd, my mother was sitting in her recliner.

And thank you, Ms. Patty, for allowing us to do that.

My mother was sitting in the recliner.

The wheelchair was next to her.

She was trying to get ready to go to activities.

She pushed the buzzer.

She waited.

No one came.

Wheelchair here.

She's going to try to get in the wheelchair herself to go.

She fell.

Black eye.

Bruises here.

Had to go to -- this was May the 3rd with the new administrator in place.

Didn't happen on the previous one.

Okay.

Not enough staff to take care of them.

My mother is being told that, okay, you can ring the buzzer, but if we don't answer,

just go ahead on and wet yourself.

Do you want your parent to wet themselves and whatever?

That type of thing.

That is sad.

And it does something to the dignity.

My mother is 97 years old.

She did not wet herself when she was home and whatever.

So she has to wet herself if no one comes down.

And this is what happened because the people that are there can only do so much.

They can only do so much.

There's not enough people to take care.

And when you bring people from the outside that do not know the person,

and that's what's been happening these past few months,

people that do not know my mother is taking care of her.

So when I come in, I have to do some teaching.

Don't do this.

Do it this way on a regular basis.

So every time I come in, I inspect her and see and whatever.

There are some family members -- watch my time.

There are some family members that are not able to be there, like my sister and myself.

Every day we're at that nursing home.

In the morning, in the evening, we have a routine.

There's never a day that we're not there.

And I'm telling you all, if you have anybody in the nursing home,

do a drive-by, do what you need to do, but show up.

Show up.

[applause]

And we need you to keep on keeping on because when the patient is not getting the care that they need,

it's not the employee.

I know it's not the employee.

They're doing the best that they can.

They can't do the job of two people.

So I really thank you all for being here,

and we need to push and make sure that some changes are made.

[applause]

At this time, we will entertain questions from the audience concerning the Wacomico Nursing Home.

We understand that this is a sensitive topic,

especially when it concerns the level of care and trust for our loved ones.

I am asking that you make your comments or ask your questions with respect, with grace, and with courtesy.

It is okay to question, but what is not okay is to have a level of disrespect forming when you ask your question.

Additionally, if you have questions and do not care to speak, we have some note cards that we will pass around,

and if you have a question, we will collect it, and I will read the question for you.

Again, please ask your question with dignity, courtesy, and respect of all our panelists.

Okay?

As my pastor teaches us, please say amen.

Amen.

Thank you.

There are two microphones in the center.

I think this young lady right here, are you ready to ask your question, ma'am?

I am.

Okay, please state your name.

My name is Linda Anderson, and I live in Salisbury, Maryland.

And I am Red Cross certified.

I'm a licensed lobotomist.

I am a CNA, a GNA, and I also do volunteer work.

Now, for the Wacomico County Nursing Home, anybody from my church that's in that nursing home,

I ask their family member if it's all right if I go over to clean them, to help feed them,

or to do whatever is necessary.

Okay?

Now, with the old administration, they would do that,

and I would always make sure that the people signed the paper saying it's okay for Linda Anderson to be here to do that.

Two things -- and I don't want to jump on you, Mr. --

But listen, sweetie, when I just said that I go to these places and do what I do --

now, I go all over Salisbury.

I go in Salisbury.

I clean their bathrooms.

I change their sheets.

I do their laundry.

I mow their lawn.

I put toilets in their houses.

You know, I do some everything, and I get my payment from God.

Okay?

But I never once mentioned a name, and I'm not trying to jump on you,

but HIPAA, okay, tells me that I can't come out of them people's houses and the nursing homes,

even though I'm free service to tell you or you or you or you whom I helped and how I helped.

You cannot mention the people's name in the nursing homes in front of all these people.

Okay?

All these people that heard this lady's name that said to you, "The fool's cold," and it's wrapped in plastic.

See, then you start a community commotion.

That's it.

Okay?

So I'm just saying that, you know, for the next time, you know, that you keep that underneath your belt.

The only other question I ask, does the new administration -- oh, thank you.

And Mrs. Peters, she's my neighbor.

She's a wonderful nurse.

Yes, she is.

[Applause]

She's really, really, really good.

She's a part of the people.

Is the new administration going to allow people like me to come into the nursing facility

and help my family, my church family, or anybody else's church family.

If they want me to go, just let me know.

Are they going to allow us to come in and help without being beaten down?

That's what I want to know.

I just want to know if we're going to be allowed to continue doing what some of us do out of the kindness of our hearts

without getting jumped on because, you know, I ain't that safe.

[Laughter]

I'm kidding.

Thank you.

Was your question directed to someone specific or anyone can answer?

I wanted to know anyone there that knows this new administration if they could answer if people like myself

are going to be allowed to go in and help these people.

Ma'am, you can stay right there.

Ma'am, you can stay right there.

That's all.

Okay.

Does anyone on the panel care to answer the question?

Does anyone on the panel have a response?

Okay, so my thought process here is that that's a question for the county executive.

She hired the administrator, and that's the only person up here who can make that call.

And so the administrator really should have been here.

She did receive an invitation to be here tonight to be asking questions or answering questions.

But at this juncture, it would be your county executive.

Can we expect responses, please?

Yeah, sure, absolutely.

And actually, I really wish I could.

I do not know how to run a nursing home.

I never thought that I could run a nursing home.

But I will ask, actually, Matthew, who is our director of health for the county,

is there any sort of legal ramification if somebody was to come in that is not an employee?

I don't know what that answer is.

That's why I said I had them signed.

Right, and I'm not sure what that answer is.

I think that that's more of a state situation.

Matthew, do you have any thoughts on that?

That's really going to be a OHCQ question and the operations of the administrator to make that decision.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Before the next question, which will be the lady in the back, we have notecards.

If you care to write a question or a comment, please raise your hand so that we can give you a notecard.

Ma'am.

Hi, I've been in HR for 25 years.

Can you state your name, please?

Sure.

My name is Maureen Foreman.

I've been in HR for 25 years.

I've also been a director of HR at the nursing home.

And this is what I want to say.

A title does not make somebody a leader.

And I'm going to respect that as I can.

[Applause]

A leader inspires.

This lady right here has inspired a community.

A community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Hiring a nursing home administrator and don't know what a nursing home administrator entails, well, how can you accurately hire someone?

No disrespect, just a question.

Because leaders set the tone and they also lead by example.

In HR, I'm going to say this, we've lost 14, I believe, ma'am.

Three terminated, 14 altogether, right?

Employees leave miserly before they ever physically walk out the door.

[Applause]

So we have 14 now.

But when we have a leader that sits behind a closed door, if that's not corrected because they set the tone, I can't inspire this lady to go out and make the clients happy.

Keep the residents motivated.

Make them feel love.

Make them feel compassion.

If it's not driven down, if you're sitting behind the door, you have no clue.

And to this lady right here, that's a nurse, ma'am, I'm sorry, I don't want your term letter.

Forgive me if your name escaped me, but I heard so much tonight it blew my mind.

I apologize in advance.

Ms. Dolores, there is no way you should have been terminated.

[Applause]

And I will say this, to your credit, to your credit, it's not uncommon for people to be terminated over the phone.

I'm going to tell you that.

That's this new age way of doing things.

Because it avoids confrontation.

Because this lady is obviously going to ask some questions.

And while you were terminated and HR was not present, I got two words and one song, and I'm done.

[Applause]

Again, if you have a statement or a question, we have a note card if you don't care to be at the microphone.

Hello?

One minute, hold, please.

Yes, Ms. Katrina.

Good evening.

My name is Katrina Purnell.

I'm a resident of Salisbury, Maryland.

I know everybody understands the passion of this.

We built a nursing home ourselves.

I think for someone to totally disregard the respect that we have for the building, you are saying you disrespect Mrs. Pope.

I loved her.

You saying you disrespect Ms. Cleo Walston, I really loved her.

When you go through and say, well, we need to have a board, they had a board when they built the place.

I can't tell you as a young person how many chicken dinners I carried on my bicycle to when they were making money so they could build the place.

And then you all disrespect the elders of our community with your foolishness.

I'm just -- let me tell you, at my age, there's not very much you can do to a 76-year-old woman.

So let me make that part clear.

We need to understand that because you make a number for what one person can do to manage people doing a tour when they have to bathe them, give them their medicine, see what they want, have them go to the bathroom.

Katrina, how do you know that?

Because my brother was in a nursing home.

And what it was so scandalous, I'm one of the people that wrote a letter to the state.

I drove my car up and put my brother in there.

If I got to pay that kind of money to have somebody taking care of my brother, I took care of my brother for 12 years.

I took him to my house and paid the people to come to me so I could at least see them and talk to them.

So my question to you people who seem to be so insensitive about what goes on for God's children, would you want your parents to be in that place?

Does anyone in the family have a comment?

Thank you, Ms. Katrina.

Yes, ma'am.

And then you're next.

Good evening.

My name is Ileana Kadushin.

I'm the executive director of Stories Love Music.

We're a nonprofit on the Eastern Shore since 2017.

Since 2017, we have been going into memory care, assisted living, and nursing home.

What is happening tonight is not a surprise to Stories Love Music.

We've had our eye on this for a long time.

It's systemic.

We pulled our own data from the state of Maryland.

We were very honored to testify with Delegate Hughes in Annapolis for House Bill 945 because we could see us moving.

People have told me that senior care, elder care, memory care has become a toxic care of culture.

And that comes from an employee feeling disposable.

And I didn't know what that meant until my organization goes in to assisted living and memory care,

and we work with people that work with elders.

We teach them how to use the arts for their own self-care and stress management,

and that is a tool to deepen their emotional and to create meaningful moments.

It's not just delivering food and medicine and hygiene.

It's meaning of life.

And you can have a corporate mindset even when you are not a corporate entity.

And what we're seeing now is we're trying to run nursing homes and memory care like a McDonald's.

That is not--you cannot run the books that way.

And I knew that the day we walked in and worked with some staff at a facility here in Salisbury that will not be mentioned.

And after a very short time, a staff woman, a CNA, said, "Ileana, your program made me realize I'm a care provider."

And I said, "What did you think of yourself beforehand?"

And she said, "Just a disposable employee."

So if these are the people taking care of your family members, it's a top down.

So I am just putting myself here to say I will be working with all those that want to work with us.

We've had our eye on this.

We know what makes an employee feel--at times this is very dehumanizing work for people in senior care.

They're being asked to care for your parents, your family members, and it's highly dehumanizing.

And the training is disease and patient focused, which is very depersonalized.

So yes, we have to treat them--teach them how to deal with patients and disease,

but we also have to make employees feel like they matter.

And Stories Love Music has committed in Wiconico--we're based here--we've committed to working with staff if their ownership will allow us.

[applause]

Hello, my name is Dan McHugh. I live in Dorchester County in Cambridge.

I currently work in health care a little bit right now as a specimen collector.

And yes, it is true, the private world of health care has gotten more automated.

My company--this is small--is a company, and it's all automation.

I deal with--I've never even met my supervisor in person.

It's all done on Teams. My boss is in another state.

The CEO is in California, and that's just the way of the world of 2026 with corporations today.

So that's what's going on, not just with health care.

Now I want to speak a little bit on this legislation, because I was a legislative aide in Annapolis for five years, six years--a long time, anyway.

I've sat through a ton of hearings like this.

I worked for a senator and a delegate in the Judiciary Committee, and I've been through hundreds of testimony of emotion and people outraged and accusations being made.

And what happens a lot of times is legislation is passed based on knee-jerk reactions and things and folks being upset.

That's why you need to investigate and get the facts right.

Legislation generally, the first time, never goes very well, no matter how hard you work on it.

It's just the process of legislation.

Anybody that's worked on legislation, I've written a bill that's law.

You have to really take your time, talk to stakeholders.

I'm concerned about this legislation.

We've seen things like the police reform bills in Maryland, which was a complete disaster, by the way, which led to the murder of a deputy sheriff down here on the shore.

We saw a kennel bill passed in this county that almost put every kennel in Wacomico out of business.

They had to amend the bill because they put in a thousand-foot restriction that not one kennel could comply with.

Heck, nobody could do that.

And we just saw recently the state of Maryland try to bamboozle the voters with a special session where the parliamentarian said, "We make our own rules."

And now that legislation has lost two court cases in a row.

So, yes, you want to get it right when you work on legislation, because when it goes to court, it can go pretty bad.

And another one, the C.T. Wilson bill, the look-back child predator bill, the bill that was passed with the former Democrat attorney general.

Sir, excuse me.

Yeah.

Do you have a comment or question on this topic?

Yes, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

So, I am about solutions, and I believe what should be done before any legislation is passed, there should be an investigation.

Maybe by the state.

Maybe you bring in an independent investigator from another county, like Worcester County or Somerset or Sussex County, Delaware.

And there should be a report, a commission report, that should go to the council and go to the executives with all these claims and accusations.

And that's what legislation should go on, not just a mob and people screaming.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sit down.

Delegate Serena, you have a response.

First, I'm going to say -- well, the gentleman's walking away.

He cares to hear my response.

Well, sir, I've been a legislator for 20 years now and representing this community.

And everyone in this room that knows me, they know that I'm going to come with the facts.

I have come with the facts from the day I stepped on the Wicomico County Council in 2006.

And I'm still doing that today.

And I don't know what specific legislation -- are you referring to the county or are you referring to the state?

Which legislation, ma'am?

You said legislation.

So let me be specific for you.

House Bill 945 --

Would you support it, ma'am?

Sir, you had your time to speak.

Please give the gentlelady an opportunity to respond.

House Bill 945 that was unanimously passed.

And my colleagues are sitting here, one from the Senate and one from the House.

They voted on it as well.

And the facts are -- the facts are that this state had over 9,000 complaints in assisted living facilities and nursing homes.

I think that's enough factual information to decide that we as legislators did our due diligence.

You can talk about emotions all day.

Heck, yeah, I've got emotions because my mother's in the nursing home.

My grandmother was in the nursing home.

Assisted living facilities in this state are not even being overseen properly.

Let's keep it real.

Do you want to live like that?

No.

That's why we passed the legislation.

And it's done on facts.

If you want to talk about the local legislation, I suggested it to the county council.

I said this is some of the legislation you need to consider.

Bring some level of oversight.

And I did it because, again, I brought the facts and it's important for us to stay on factual information instead of on topic.

You want to talk about redistricting? That's a whole other conversation.

You want to talk about police reform? That's a whole other conversation.

And I was in on that, too.

My son's a police officer.

So, you know, you can talk all day long, but I've been doing it for 20 years, and I don't know how much longer I'll continue to do it.

But I will tell you this.

I come with facts, and that's what we're going to continue to do as long as I represent this community.

[applause]

Before you speak, sir, I do have a question from Milkheart.

This is for County Executive Giordano.

Why won't you walk through the building to get to know the residents?

That is the question.

I actually have walked through.

I was invited on Friday to actually talk to the residents, so we have been there.

Apparently, I guess I need to be there more often, and I apologize.

You know, you're running a whole county, and not that that's an excuse.

But I will tell you, I'm listening to every single person.

I don't need to think that I'm sitting here playing on my phone.

I'm writing your names down.

I didn't have a pad of paper up here.

So I have walked through the nursing home.

I've been given tours multiple times.

Can we respect her, please?

Can we respect her, please?

Yeah, that's fine.

But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, I'm in a situation right now where we have an administrator that is qualified.

Whether you like her or not, she does have the qualifications.

I see that a lot of you are upset with the way things are going.

And maybe, you know, with this county council legislation, there could be, you know -- but we still have a person that has a job right now.

And so right now, sitting here attacking her or attacking the situation, I'm not sure how helpful that is.

I don't know.

And I know that's kind of getting off topic.

But at the end of the day, I have walked through -- I have walked through the nursing home.

And, you know, I plan to continue doing that.

Thank you for your response.

I have another one.

That was my question.

You said you walked through and you were invited, but you called and asked if you could be invited to the resident council.

So how was that invited?

No, I didn't call at all.

I actually was called to be invited.

I did not call.

Okay.

That's 100% what happened.

When do you walk through the nursing home to get to know the residents?

None.

All right.

All right.

So, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, thank you.

Thank you for your question.

Thank you.

We're going to move to this gentleman right here.

Sir.

Thanks for holding my place.

I'm Mike Goldberg.

I've got to be here with that camera.

I'm Mike Goldberg with Open Agenda TV.

And I'm very glad for the opportunity to ask the question.

I was not afforded that courtesy on Friday by the county executive at her press conference.

But my question is specifically for you, Madam Executive.

You have alluded on at least two occasions that you may pursue legal action without having even seen the proposed emergency legislation.

Now, there's a little bit of a history here.

Briefly, you've sued the council previously because you didn't get your way with the hiring of the director of administration.

Sir, should we put sales out there?

My time, not yours now.

So, you have, several years ago, you sued the county council because you didn't get your way with hiring Matt Beissel.

It went all the way to the appellate court.

It cost at least tens of thousands, if not six figures, is what it cost county taxpayers.

My question is, what is the cost limit that you will impose pursuing the council if you don't get your way with this emergency legislation?

Thank you.

Sure.

All right.

So, first and foremost, I have read the emergency legislation.

So, I've actually read it.

It's actually sent to us before it's made public.

So, I have read the emergency legislation.

Secondly, it's not about me suing at all.

When you give the county council the ability to handle personnel when our charter doesn't allow for that, then the administrator has the ability to sue and has met with an attorney already.

So, at the end of the day, it has nothing to do with me suing.

It has to do with the current administrator.

Sir, sir, sir, sir.

Can you just stop that with your authority?

Okay.

Sir, sir, thank you.

Well, no, I can't control who she talks to with an attorney.

She has, you know, that right to seek an attorney.

That's the Constitution.

Okay.

Madam Executive, we're going to move on.

I don't even know.

You.

Yes, ma'am.

My name is Marsha E. Packett.

I come from a mental health background, licensed private practice.

My concern, and I thank the ones that were there formerly, the excellent job you did, my brother's there, and my sister was there, and it was excellent care.

And let me say this, whenever my brother or sister had an issue, it was taken care of immediately.

I received phone call after phone call about the test results, what was normal, what was abnormal.

Now, my problem and my question is, and my concern is, because I'm a therapist, I was also an ex-respiratory therapist for 23 years.

However, my concern right now is what about the traumatization you're doing to the residents and what qualifications and what have you put in place for each one of those residents who, because of disruption in care,

are you doing to help them understand and be helpful with them in understanding and helping them with re-traumatization?

These are elderly folk.

You know, what training do you have when you put a respiratory therapist in head and in charge?

Respiratory therapists resuscitate.

Respiratory therapists work with lung issues.

Respiratory therapists help grieving people with asthma, COPD.

But my concern is what in the world are you doing to help these residents that are being traumatized because you have disconnected them with people that show them care, compassion, and love.

Just really quick, so her background is in respiratory therapy, but she is a certified nursing home administrator.

So there's a specific certification that you have to have.

So she does have that.

All right.

Before we go to the microphones, I have one question on a card.

It doesn't have a name, but I'm going to say it.

It has been said the new administration has had eight jobs in the past 10 years.

Is this new person qualified?

And you just spoke about that.

Do you care to speak more about that?

Okay.

I'm just offering you the opportunity.

No, no, no, that's fine.

We've actually had several PIAs come in on Ms. Foskey's resume and application.

Legally, I can't really discuss that because that's part of personnel.

But as I said, in order to be a nursing home administrator, you have to have certification.

She has that certification.

Thank you.

Okay, well, she responded.

So City Council President April Jackson.

County Executive.

Where's the transparency here?

That's a major need.

I don't understand how any piece of government can hire someone without your legislative branch.

This should have came before them just as well as you.

You went out and hired.

It should have came before your legislative branch.

I wholeheartedly agree, Ms. Jackson.

I will tell you the previous administrator never went in front of the council either.

I have no problem with the appointment confirmation process.

Wait a minute, you had one person.

How was this job posted?

How was it posted?

It was posted on a date.

Somebody told somebody that there was a job opening.

They applied for the job, and they got the job.

It makes you wonder why people don't trust government.

Well, it was actually on our county website.

It was on Indeed.

We had it out just like we do every other job.

It doesn't really matter, and I'm not being negative or disrespectful in any kind of way because I don't need any disrespect.

None of this is necessary.

But transparency.

Okay, this is in Councilwoman Cheney's district.

She should have known that this person was being hired.

The community should have -- we shouldn't have had to come here for this.

The community should have known it from the very beginning.

This should have come from you.

It should have come from you, and that's why the trust in government is so vague.

Now, because of the things that are being done, in the government, you have seven people in your legislative branch.

You don't allow them to not let them know that this was going on, that you had hired someone.

They had to hear it from somebody in the street.

That's the same thing I have a problem with in our city government, having to hear things from the street.

And then we can't answer because we don't have an answer because we don't even know it's being done.

So just in response to that, so after Ms. Foskey was offered the job and she accepted,

we did a closed-door meeting with the county council, and they had an opportunity to meet with her.

Well, it was after you hired her.

Correct.

It was after -- it shouldn't have been after -- it shouldn't have been after -- let me finish.

Sorry, go ahead, ma'am.

You had your turn.

Let me advise.

You had every opportunity to let your council know that this was taking place, and you refused to.

You refused to because you knew who you were going to hire.

Okay?

No, you already knew.

You already knew.

You already knew.

But guess what?

See, all these people sitting here, every last one of them.

I work here in the Y-Town for Nursing Home.

I have my clinical there, my internship, in 1989.

It was one of the best places I've ever worked in my whole entire life.

And for you all to bring somebody in to cause rehabbing, not only with employees but with the patients.

It's horrible.

It's trauma.

It's trauma on all sides.

So I think you need to reassess what you're doing.

And I know it may hurt your feelings to have to tell this woman you no longer have a job like y'all told her she no longer had a job.

[Applause]

Thank you.

Thank you.

Very briefly.

Very, very briefly.

I made a statement at the council meeting, in perfect government, the county executive should work with the council and the council should work with the executive.

The problem is it's not happening.

It's not happening.

And this is why we're sitting here today.

We couldn't object to the person if it was already hired.

I'm not going to get arrested just because you have something on paper doesn't mean you're qualified.

Thank you.

Sir.

Yes.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is William Green.

I have two questions for anyone up here.

First question is, is this a concern for the Maryland Attorney General's office?

Second question, does the county answer to the state of Maryland, does the state of Maryland answer to the county?

Anyone on the panel?

Anyone care to speak?

He had two questions.

No, I'm not going to answer any questions.

So let me -- through this process, I went straight to the state, and they're my partners because I'm a state legislator.

And it went to the office of health care quality.

As a matter of fact, I had an emergency meeting with the Deputy Director of Department of Health for the state.

They came down last week.

They did their investigation.

They left on Friday.

All of that has transpired within the past three weeks.

The next step, yes, is the Attorney General's office.

But they left on Friday.

Today is Monday.

I have to at least receive the report.

But the piece that is concerning for me is the day-to-day concerns of what's happening to our residents.

They can't get back their time.

But I can share with you that I have been expeditious about every step in the process.

And the administrator at that building, she may say I was a little aggressive because I approached her at the car.

And so I'm not playing.

But today is Monday, and they left on Friday.

You can respond additionally.

Yes.

The state of Maryland, OHCQ, they regulate, oversee, investigate any nursing home, assisted care facilities.

So pretty much what they say or what they investigate is going to be what's going to be implemented or changes need to be done.

So with them coming down, doing an investigation, they will provide the recommendations or investigative findings that they find.

The local level, besides notification and cooperation based off of OHCQ's request,

there is not much besides for the food service facilities at the nursing home that the local health department does oversee.

Thank you.

We have four more questions, and then we're going to wrap up, and we'll bring Reverend Watson up to close out.

Mikelle.

Good evening.

I've been unwell.

I'm unwell right now.

So I apologize if my voice is a little shaky.

But this felt really important to me tonight to make it out here.

And I'm so glad I did because I'm just looking around at this room.

I see what community means.

I see people that have experienced a hardship, that their families are in danger, that their communities are in danger,

and I see that they've come together to stand together to make their voice heard to affect positive change.

You know, we got drug into political issues here in the county, unfortunately, without wanting to.

And from that time on, I've been sad.

It's taken a lot of my life.

It's taken a lot of time for my kids, for my hobbies, for what I want to do.

But what it has shown me is some of the best people I've ever met.

And they're right here in Wicomico County.

And what it has shown me is that the government does work when you work with it,

when you stand up and when you use your voice and when you come together and you don't give up.

And I will say, and I will say, Mr. Hirdano, we have been intimidated.

We have been stepped on.

We have been silenced.

I have done so many PIAs.

And you know what?

We don't have a platform.

But I know this -- Ms. Wendy Kaitlin talked about illusion.

And illusion is what goes on.

In my PIA, I see that many, many of the press releases, many of the things that are put out on social media,

they are shared with people on social media beforehand, that they are propagated, they are put out there.

The stories are curated.

And when they get out there, the other side is smashed.

And I see that happening here.

And what I see is a group of people that have come together and said, no, we're not going to let that happen.

We aren't going to let spin take over our narrative, what we're experiencing, what we're going through.

And I'm just so proud of all of you for that.

And, Mr. Duff, I want to ask -- I've been saying it for two years.

I've gotten to the podium a bunch.

I've wrote you letters.

Start holding regular meetings.

Have an agenda.

Have a briefing book.

And stand in front of your constituents and hear them.

[Applause]

Thank you, Mr. Duff.

Mr. Wendy Davis.

Good evening.

Wendy, unlike you, regardless of what I say, they're going to make it political.

So I might as well let that out of the bag now.

The nursing home, it's self-sufficient.

The county owns it.

But it's not a department.

Meaning that the county council doesn't have much power over that like any other department.

It pretty much laid in the hands of the county executive.

Prime example.

Me and John was on the county council.

You guys don't know this, but the airport was similar like with the nursing home.

It had a board that ran it.

It was so strict.

They wouldn't even make them cut the grants out there.

So what do we do?

We took the airport and made up the department.

When it came with the department, you see how the airport is growing now?

That's because it had checks and balances.

One couldn't do nothing without the other.

That's what we need with the nursing home.

We need checks and balances.

What the council is doing, this emergency legislation, is to start them.

But what needs to happen, and here's my political part, November 4th, I will move to make that a department.

And when it comes to department, you will see better care taken of that building.

The upkeep will be there because not only they will have to come to the council more than four times a year.

Because there will be a department head that has to come and do reports.

The council will be able to bring them in front of the council on a regular basis to talk to them.

Unlike now, they can't do it because it's not a department.

So what that place needs to be a department, if the county wants to keep that nursing home, make it a department so we can put money back into that place.

When I was on the council, again, it was trying to be sold.

We stopped it.

We put money into that place.

The place is self-sufficient.

Just like you said, the $400 lawsuit, they paid it because the nursing home makes money.

It doesn't need the county, but it does need the county.

That building is how old?

I grew up on the west side.

I saw that building.

That building hadn't changed a bit.

We need to put money into that place.

Like they said, it's a four-star nursing home.

All the other nursing homes in this county are two-star.

And you want to destroy it in four months?

Come on.

[applause]

So you guys know what you got to do.

That's all I got to say.

[applause]

So really quick, just to respond to Mr. Davis' comment.

A little bit different.

So the airport was an enterprise fund.

But the reason that the county took it is because it could function operationally, but it could not afford the capital costs

of what it takes to keep the airport up to date, so the new buildings, the new runway, whatever else.

So we ended up absorbing it.

It's a little bit different with a common code nursing home because it has its own tax ID number.

So it is completely separate from the county.

So it's not just as easy to say that we can just make it a department.

And I would stress to say I have talked to many, many of the employees, and maybe they weren't being truthful with me,

they don't want to be a county department.

That's what I was told.

They want to have their own personnel manual.

They want to have their own rules.

They don't want to have to follow procurement law the same way that we do in government.

Right now, whether it's Patty or whether it's Tina or whoever's in charge, when there's something that needs to be done,

the nursing home can call up whoever they would like and say, "This is who we want to fix it."

When you are under county government rules, it doesn't work like that.

There's a lot of other procurement rules and things like that that go into place to be a county department.

So I just wanted to lay that out there.

But the airport is a little bit different scenario.

Yes, ma'am.

Well, the fact that the county owns it I think would probably go a long way in allowing us maybe some of the ability to absorb it as a department.

You would really need to be asking an attorney that.

But I think what Mr. Davis is suggesting is that it's certainly an option that we ought to be considering, and I would agree with that.

[Applause]

The other thing, too, is with the capital, we have helped the nursing home.

I'm just trying to give the facts out that we have helped the nursing home.

We just put a new generator in.

We just gave $200,000 for the roof.

So capital-wise, we are assisting.

Thank you, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am.

At Fox, Wicomico County, I just have a couple things to say.

First, I want to thank all the councilmen here who did push this emergency legislation through.

We thought that our elder people in our county is more than just as important as total health and a marijuana store.

[Applause]

So with that said, I want to also say to the employees that are still there, I'm so thankful that you're hanging in there.

I know the people that see your face every day are thankful you're still there.

I know I go to visit my friend's urologist, and I feel intimidated walking through the door.

So with that said, I appreciate you still hanging in there.

[Applause]

Thank you.

We have three more questions, three more statements, and then we must move on to the ninth question.

I have a statement, not a question.

My name is Chris Windsor.

I'm one of the three that was terminated, the second one by telephone call.

Julie and I have already had conversations on Facebook, so there's no need for her to comment.

[Laughter]

I made a mistake during payroll.

It affected 11 employees, myself included.

So I own it.

I made a mistake.

But that was the first one out of 320-some that I had done at the nursing home.

I got a target on my back shortly after Ms. Foskey was appointed administrator.

She stated she couldn't understand how we ran without being corporate.

I let her know that Mary Schwartz and Patricia Leon Tencher were our corporate.

We didn't have any problems.

We were a four-star facility.

Since April the 9th, Ms. Giordano has spoken to the fact that there's been over 100 hours from HR put in the building.

How many of those hours were put in prior to April the 9th from 1972 when the county took over the nursing home?

Zero.

I know Mary Schwartz only met with the council once a year when she submitted the budget.

We were always in the black.

We never had any problems.

We didn't need to go and have someone hold our hands.

We were self-sufficient.

We were county, but we were not county.

So I don't know why now all of a sudden we have this person in there and it's being destroyed.

You know, when you have a snake, you cut off its head.

You know, maybe that's what needs to be done.

I know Ms. Leon Tencher is available for a job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Ms. Monica Brooks.

Good evening.

My name is Monica Brooks.

I'm a resident here in Wacomico County.

I'm also president of our NAACP, one of the partners with this event.

I'm also a business owner.

I have employees that are responsible for work that we do.

Can we respect, please?

So my first question is, well, let me get still back to background.

If one of my employees does something or there are questions from a client that says I don't like this, this, and that,

I have a concern, or what have you, then I bring that employee with me to speak to that client and we resolve the matter.

How is it that your administrator is not here tonight?

How did you allow that to happen?

Because I'm going to tell you something.

If it were me, he would have been or she would have been right here to answer the things.

You can't answer this stuff because you don't even know what the heck is going on.

So it's really kind of in a way there's a gaping hole here that could have been filled by this person to answer for themselves.

So how did that happen?

I wholeheartedly agree.

And I think that it would have been really good for her to be here as well.

I will tell you that I think she was invited along with Miss Singbell from the state and both declined.

And so, you know, I mean, I was kind of hoping that she would be here.

We'll have a conversation tomorrow.

But I wholeheartedly agree.

I think that being here and listening, I think, is part of it.

And I think that she probably needed to hear some of these things.

But I have my director of administration, assistant director of administration that's worked really closely with her.

So hopefully we'll be able to relay a lot of this to her.

But I do agree that she should have been here.

Look, I'm going to tell you, it's not easy sitting up here in this role.

And I know that there's a lot of angry folks at me right now.

But I did come.

And I did show up.

And I am here listening.

Okay, so the other part of it is I just really wanted to say, because I was going to just wait to the end, but I'm just going to be just here as a constituent and say this particular thing.

What I know personally, okay, what I know personally is that you take everything personally.

And any time anyone doesn't agree with you, and that was my own personal experience, which I've already said publicly before.

I'm not going to go into it now, is you start blocking people.

You start cursing people out.

You start doing all this stuff.

Now, it sounds to me that your administrator is following in your footsteps in the same way that what you do.

And I will say that it's current information when we had our press conference, which you were talking about, well, why didn't y'all come to our press conference?

First of all, why did you have the press conference in a small space that if you wanted everybody to come, everybody can't fit on there.

So you should have had it outside like we normally do, number one.

Number two, I want to say this.

We had our press conference, which you showed up at some point to the press conference, and there was your administrator over there, yeah, you, over there, who started videotaping people after the press conference was done, putting his camera in people's faces.

And I said to him, why are you filming people when the press conference is over?

He said absolutely nothing and just kept the camera in my face and all of these residents and people who came out and spent their time.

And then on top of that, then you had the doggone canine come from the share station to post that.

First of all, don't try to act like you didn't know because they came.

Why were they sitting up there on the side while we were doing our press conference?

So before that, there's a gag order on the staff, and I was told, and you can clarify this, that now nobody's allowed in the nursing home unless they are family.

So what I'm saying is this.

The intimidation is evident, and number two, ain't nobody scared of you, nobody's scared of you, nobody's scared of this administration, and we will not have any of these people intimidated by acting with cameras in the face. You saw him putting cameras in people's faces.

You didn't come over and say, stop doing that.

That was your responsibility to do, and you can hold him accountable.

But he, no, he don't want to look at me now.

Yep, the other day, he had a camera in my face.

So you be responsible for your actions, and you should have reprimanded him if you did not agree to that.

Okay, so you're like yelling at me.

Okay, so first and foremost.

Secondly.

That's what you do.

That's the way you learn.

That's the way you do it.

First of all, when someone calls for a press conference on county property that is not a county employee, there was a sheriff, a sheriff's deputy that was circling to make sure that they were not on the property, which you guys were across the street.

It was completely fine.

When I showed up, I was a few minutes late.

I had some interviews that I was talking to press about, and then as soon as that was done, I came out to listen.

I came out to listen.

I will tell you, I've seen the video that he took, and actually, the original reason that he started filming was because I wasn't there.

So he wanted to make sure that I heard every word.

So fair enough.

Afterwards, Mr. Lakin did not move his feet from that location.

So to say that he was getting up in the faces of people, I watched every single person approach him in his face.

And all of a sudden, actually, what it said was, I think it was, I can't remember who it was, said that they were going to start taking questions.

So he was continuing to film for the questions.

And then all of a sudden, he kept getting approached.

Every single person on that video, which we have the video, walked up in his face.

He didn't move.

He didn't say a word.

He didn't engage with anyone.

All he did was film.

And there was multiple cameras out there, multiple.

At the end of the day, I don't want you to be afraid of me.

I'm not trying to tell you to be afraid.

No, I mean, you're saying you're not afraid.

I'm not afraid of you.

You're not afraid of me.

I'm not afraid.

That is not what this is about.

No, I mean, that is not what this is about at all.

So to sit there and start making, oh, I'm not scared of you.

We're not scared of him.

Good.

I don't want you to be.

We would never be.

Okay, well, good.

I don't want you to be at all.

Wherever have I said that there should be instilled fear in people?

It's ridiculous.

Can we move?

I'm going to table that.

Out of respect, my first advice, I'm going to step away from this microphone.

Thank you.

However, you already know.

And filming people when there's no conversation.

And I specifically watched for a while.

And I said, I looked and I said, well, how long is he going to keep filming?

Because it's done.

And then he said, I went over and I said, why are you filming people?

When the press conference is over, why are you still filming people?

And he took his camera from here and he stretched it here towards me.

That way.

I asked very nicely, why are you doing this?

I said, don't you think this is beneath you?

What is something that you're doing?

So to me, to be filming people when people are already on eggshells, people have already felt intimidated within the building.

If you can't read that room, something's really wrong.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Good evening.

My name is Farthing Sells.

And I'm calling -- well, I'm not calling, but I'm making a statement.

Because when my sister, she had ALS and we were looking for the top-notch nursing home, Wacomico was referred to us.

And from the time we walked into that building, we were welcomed all the way through.

Ms. Eloise, she was awesome.

When there was things that other people didn't understand about ALS, she was teaching them.

And that made our family really respect her and her position.

Ms. Josephine, I could call many more, Ms. Bonnie, Ms. Crystal, and Ms. Denise, but mainly Ms. Denise and Delores and Ms. Josephine.

They made our family their family.

Because whatever I needed -- oh, and there was something that she really needed, like a call button, and they didn't have it.

She made sure she had something.

And she actually trained a lot of them to take care of my sister.

And for that, our family is thankful for you.

It was heartbreaking to hear they let you go.

They should not have done.

Not at all.

So I want Wacomico to be a four-star.

And if it means -- I'm telling you, awesome.

When we walked in there every day, it didn't matter what time we walked in there, the nurses, everybody knew our names.

Where did you go when they knew your name when you walked in through the door from the beginning to the room?

And with all this going on, it's heartbreaking.

So we need to get it together.

Thank you.

Thank you.

At this time, we have a quick statement from another one of the lead organizations, Reverend Jones.

He's the convener for the Caucus of African-American Leaders.

And on that note, I simply want to say to Wacomico County, to you, you're doing well with what you're putting together.

The Watchmen with a Voice, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, us, the Caucus of African-American Leaders on Maryland's entire eastern shore, we got you.

We're not making promises.

We got you.

We're going to go with you through this dance until they flash the lights.

We got you.

Thank you, sir.

As we close.

I cannot leave without recognizing the administrator in this building tonight.

Our organization, Mayor Todd Chatham, had the opportunity to work with Mary Schwartz and Ms. Patricia Weinstein.

They have been awesome.

And let me say this.

They introduced themselves to us as a new administrator.

We received a call when Mrs. Schwartz retired.

And I want to say that it has been phenomenal.

We must keep the vision of Agatha Pope and those women that fought hard to make sure that there was a place for all to come and feel welcome.

Thank you.

So as we close with a call to action, we want to again thank our lead organization, Watchmen with One Voice, Caucus of African-American Leaders, the Wicomico County branch of the NAACP, other community partners.

We would like to especially thank the Watchmen with One Voice for their generous donation for radio advertisement about our town hall with the two different radio stations.

So we now ask that Reverend Lewis Watson, president of the Watchmen with One Voice, come and see and close us out as he sees fit.

Thank you so much. And let's thank Dr. Sam for being a great moderator tonight.

I say that sincerely and see you suggested on the very outside that we keep this a very peaceful meeting and it has been.

And I'm grateful that you have demonstrated yourself in a dignified manner, because as has been stated, sometimes people feel that we can't because we did have police presence at our press conference as if we did not know how to conduct ourselves.

And so I want to thank you for being a great audience tonight.

I want to thank all of these panelists who have done an extraordinary job.

And Sister Katlyn, while you say you are not a politician, you sound like a preacher. Sister girl, you have a word tonight.

And thank you so, so very much. As I close, as I close, I want to say to Sister Julie.

She said something because as there are many theologians, resident theologians in here tonight.

And as I am one, a trained seminarian, critical ear, critical thinker.

Sometimes it's not what you say, it's what you don't say.

And sometimes you can say some things, change the whole perspective.

And from the very outset, it was said, and I want it to be clear when everybody leaves here, that a one lady whose name she called told her that there was nothing wrong with that nursing home when we have about 300 people that showed up tonight to state the difference, that something is going wrong in that nursing home.

And so tonight, I don't know if that person who told her that is present, but thank God your presence has spoken tonight.

And we want everybody to know that current administrator, Sister Julie and others who are involved, that we will fight to keep what belongs to us in this community.

It's taken by force, and the only way for you to fight is you got to vote.

You got to vote.

Registration is outside in the vestibule.

Please make sure you go and register if you have not done so.

I leave with saying to whomever is involved in this whole chaotic situation, be not deceived.

God is not mocked.

But whoever may have sold it, he's going to reap it. You're not going to stay young always. And when you become elderly, you're going to want somebody to give you respect and dignity until you leave this world.

Closing, watchman, active watchman with one voice, would you please stand? I want to thank you. Active watchman with one voice, please stand.

Thank you. NAACP, would you please stand? NAACP, would you please stand?

Caucus of American African leaders, would you please stand?

Thank you so much. Community and partners, we appreciate you.

Our intercessory prayer leader from the watchman is here, Bishop Anthony Dickerson.

We're going to ask if he would come and give us a closing prayer.

Just real quick, y'all, if you want to see the video from Friday's rally at the Wicomico nursing home, you can view it if you just go to OpenAgendaWicomico.com.

You will see it at the very top of the page. It's season three, episode 47. OpenAgendaWicomico.com. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Let's stand to our feet again. Thank you for being a great audience.

Father, in the name of Jesus, we thank you, Lord. We thank you for this meeting.

And Father, we pray that things were done tonight. We we trust that it was done in decency and order and pleasing in your sight.

And so, Father, we we present this community to you. We present the Wicomico nursing home to you, all the leader, the officials.

Father, we pray, God, that you will touch their hearts in the name of Jesus.

Father, I pray now, God, I pray that you will cover that you will cover the residents in the name of Jesus.

God, we pray for every mother. We pray for every aunt. We pray for every grandparent, God, in the name of Jesus.

Cover them with your blood. Father, we thank you. There's power in your blood.

And so, God, I thank you, Lord, that your blood still works, that you will cover them, Lord, in the name of Jesus.

And whatever situation is going on, Father, you work it out, Father, in the name of Jesus.

And we thank you, Lord, that when we leave this place, but never your presence.

God, we thank you. Will you go with us and stand by us till we meet again?

In Jesus' name we pray. We thank you now. Amen.

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