Hospital board undecided on public meetings

The chairman for the governing board of the planned, publicly funded $1.2 billion state teaching hospital in New Orleans says he’s not certain whether future meetings of the panel will be open to the public. Chairman Bobby Yarborough of Baton Rouge says the full board for the University Medical Center will make the question as the first item on the board’s agenda when it meets Aug. 25, and he’s “leaning” to push that the meetings be public. Yarborough says he wants the board to be “transparent and accountable to the public,” but he says the panel isn’t required to follow the state’s open meetings law. It is not clear where the board will get its legal advice on that question. Ray Lamonica, LSU’s general counsel, says he would be willing to give the board a legal opinion if asked, but he declined to reveal what that might be. A private, nonprofit hospital corporation was created to oversee the replacement for LSU’s Charity Hospital and the interim hospital the university system opened after Hurricane Katrina. Among the board’s initial chores is approving a business plan and deciding how to secure an additional $425 million needed to complete the projected construction budget. The state has $775 million on hand.