Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Alzheimer's center delays decision on restructuring

By ALISA ULFERTS
Published December 8, 2006

TAMPA - After a two-hour discussion, leaders of the Johnnie B. Byrd, Sr. Alzheimer's Center and Research Institute decided they needed more time to consider a controversial restructuring of the center's executive staff.

The board agreed to meet for at least four hours before or on Jan. 15.

The proposal, which is being pushed by former House Speaker Johnnie Byrd Jr., pits him against the center's chief executive officer, Huntington Potter.

Byrd opposes what he calls questionable spending at the institute and says the center needs a business executive, not a scientist, at its helm.

Byrd said Thursday that failure to restructure could have serious consequences. "I believe that funding is in jeopardy," he said. The center will get $15-million from the state for the next four years.

Potter has said the spending Byrd questioned - for lobbyists and public relations - was needed to get the institute off the ground. And lawmakers needed proof that the institute was not just "a single politician's concept of a legacy," Potter said Thursday.

The center was named after Byrd's father, who died of complications of the disease, and was created while Byrd was speaker of the state House. He is the volunteer board's treasurer.

Board members seemed divided over Byrd's proposal. Many are new after a change that now requires the governor, Senate president and House speaker to appoint board members.

The center will be the world's largest free-standing Alzheimer's research institute when finished.

[Last modified December 8, 2006, 00:17:39]