Chamber recommits to finding TGH funds

By DAVID KARP

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 3, 2000

TAMPA -- A day after it came undone, a broad-based business initiative to help Tampa General Hospital get millions in tax dollars was being stitched back together.

Inside a packed board room at the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce Thursday morning, a task force that planned to help Tampa General get state support agreed to go back to work. But they did do so on the promise that TGH would open its financial books to a chamber health care consultant.

TGH board chairman H.L. Culbreath promised for the second time to let the consultant in. "They can have all the information they need," he said.

So less than 24 hours after the chamber had called off its campaign to help Tampa General, everyone was smiling again.

"It's a new day," TGH president Ron Hytoff said.

But the on-again, off-again status of the chamber's campaign underscores how tense Tampa General's leaders can become when someone asks to see financial records -- even chamber leaders trying to help secure millions of tax dollars for the hospital.

The chamber's chairman, Bill McBride, after all, is managing partner of the Holland & Knight law firm, which is representing the Tampa Tribune in a public records lawsuit against TGH.

The chamber's health care consultant, John Biebel, used to be chief executive officer of St. Joseph's/St. Anthony's Health System, which is one of TGH's competitors.

On Thursday, Biebel said he doesn't expect to continue his review, in part because of the appearance of a conflict with his previous job. He now works as a partner at Corrigo Health Care Solutions, a consulting firm in Clearwater. "I have absolutely nothing to gain by helping St. Joseph's," he said.

Nonetheless, the chamber will now search for another consultant.

The tension over the chamber's work began last week when McBride wrote a letter to the St. Petersburg Times about the chamber's task force. In it, he said the chamber would look at whether Tampa General should become a public hospital again.

The 877-bed hospital on Davis Islands converted from a public hospital to a private non-profit in 1997. And since then, it has lost more than $29-million and now wants state support to stay financially afloat.

Culbreath told McBride on Tuesday that he didn't like the letter's emphasis on re-examining TGH's public status.

"I didn't think that one item should have been pinpointed to the degree it was in his letter," Culbreath said Wednesday.

McBride finds himself in the middle. As managing partner of a law firm that has the Tribune as a client, he could use his position as chamber chairman to help the Tribune in its public records case against the hospital.

McBride said he won't mix his different roles as chamber chairman and law firm partner.

Gregg Thomas, the firm's attorney on the Tribune case, said he doesn't like that McBride wants to help Tampa General get public money without forcing it to abide by the public records law. "If I was negotiating with Tampa General, the first deal I would make would be, "They don't get any money until they abide by the public records law and the Sunshine law," Thomas said.

"From time to time, I am not pleased with him," Thomas said of McBride, "but he is the managing partner here, and he sets my salary."

The law firm's client in the case, Tribune publisher Reid Ashe, said he doesn't object to McBride's involvement.

"I would not ask him to change the way he runs the chamber to advance my interests in the lawsuit," Ashe said.

Alison Steele, an attorney for the St. Petersburg Times, which is also a party to the lawsuit, said she doesn't object to McBride's role either. "It does not affect the Times in its position in the lawsuit," Steele said.

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