Former Brooks Memorial Hospital CEO Richard Ketcham, right, speaks to the Fredonia Planning Board. Board chairman Scott Mackay, left, and board member David Fridmann listen.

After Brooks-TLC CEO Mary LaRowe and project counsel Marc Romanowski swiftly left the meeting room earlier this week, the Fredonia Planning Board approved an extension on a site plan for a new hospital.

The discussion did not end, however. Planning Board members, joined by Fredonia politicians and former Brooks CEO Richard Ketcham in the audience, expressed fear, frustration, and regret about the situation.

Some $74 million in grant funding for the project is said to be held up in Albany, and Planning Board member David Fridmann called for more action on getting it freed. “I just can’t say enough how important this hospital is for the community,” he said. “We need to do everything we can individually.”

Elected officials must show their support for the project regularly, he continued. “We should be seeing public rallies every week or every month,” he added.

“This got extended out through the fog of COVID. People got other interests,” said Board Chairman Scott Mackay.

“I personally have written the governor recently to acknowledge my support. I urged all (state) officials to work diligently to get the funding complete,” said Fredonia Trustee James Lynden.

He agreed with Fridmann that more lobbying should be done to get the hospital built. “It’s paramount that we have a regional hospital suitable to our needs,” he said.

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Lynden then commented that Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown had just announced $50 million in state grants for a project to reopen its Main Street to cars.

“(The hospital) project is more important,” Lynden said. “I understand it’s a larger city, but we exist, too.”

Brown “went to Albany and came back with money,” he added, encouraging Fredonia Mayor Douglas Essek to also travel to the state capital.

Susan Parker, Chautauqua County legislator representing Fredonia, said, “There’s almost little pockets of activity.”

She advocated a more sustained, unified community effort. “I think it does take one level of cooperation and collaboration.”

Ketcham lamented that while people of good will and petition efforts are nice, they are not sufficient. “The challenge at the hospital is there is very little communication with the public,” he said.

Ketcham reiterated many of the points he made in an interview with the OBSERVER, published July 2 — for example, he repeated the state won’t put down more than $70 million on a new facility for a hospital currently losing $5 to $10 million a year.

He also said Brooks-TLC must have a closer relationship with the Kaleida Health Network. “It must be stronger and bigger and more robust,” he said.

Ketcham then announced he has been contacted by people in the community who want to start a task force, to work with Kaleida and Brooks on identifying the services most needed by the community.

His most important concern, he repeated, is that a new hospital get built.

“We need to have a little more selling done,” said board chairman Mackay.

However, he continued, that was not the focus of the Fredonia Planning Board. He then moved to the next item on Tuesday’s meeting agenda.