Johnston clinic vote a puzzler

OK, let me see if I've got this straight.

Tri-County Community Health Council, a nonprofit with a fine reputation that served 30,000 indigent patients last year, asked to put a new clinic in one of the neediest parts of Johnston County.

Tri-County secured $650,000 in federal grants to operate the clinic.

An older gentleman, Royie Massengill, offered 4 acres of family land -- free of charge -- as a building site for the clinic, just outside the Johnston town of Four Oaks.

And more than 1,000 people, many of whom live nearby, signed a petition in favor of the clinic.

So you'd think the Johnston County commissioners would greet this project with not only a "Yes! Yes!" chorus, but also a second verse of "Thank you! Thank you! What can we do to help??"

But no.

Earlier this year, the Johnston board voted 5-2 against the rezoning needed to make the clinic a reality.

This, even though the rezoning had been approved by the county's planning board and the project had been endorsed by the county health department and Johnston County Memorial Hospital.

This, even though Johnston clinics and hospital emergency rooms are full up with people seeking primary care because they are poor and they don't have insurance.

These are just the sort of patients Tri-County serves.

So why vote no?

Some of the commissioners who voted against the clinic said they were trying to protect a small group of property owners who live along the country road where the proposed clinic would be built.

Poor people are bad for property values, I reckon.

But for those of you who haven't driven out to Faith Church Road, near U.S. 701 and N.C. 96, you should know that this is not a part of Johnston County that has been transformed into fancy subdivisions a la Fred Smith Homes.

This is farmland dotted with trailers. Poor clinic patients wouldn't have to be attracted to this area. They already live there.

One opposing commissioner surmised that people who signed the petition in favor of the clinic and lived nearby were probably renters.

Most of those surnames, by the way, looked Hispanic.

Which brings me to a sore, sore issue for Johnston County.

Some supporters of the clinic -- by the way, Tri-County is suing the county over the denial -- have had a hard time resisting the urge to note that, in the past, Johnston County has struggled with similar slam-dunk approvals when they involved Hispanic groups.

And since Latinos make up about half of Tri-County's patients at its other clinics, well ... the comparison is tempting.

The opposing commissioners say race hasn't got doodley squat to do with the clinic denial. In fact, doodley squat's a direct quote from one.

The commissioners also say they're looking in earnest for an alternative spot to build the new clinic.

But Pam Massengill Tripp, the daughter of the man who offered to donate land on Faith Church Road for the proposed clinic, said her family would be delighted if commissioners reconsidered their no vote.

"The land is still available," she said. "We'd be just tickled."

(Listen to Ruth at 3 p.m. today on WPTF 680 AM's Bill LuMaye Show.)