Tallahassee has been ablaze with reports, social media posts and public statements regarding behind-the-scenes negotiations on the Florida State University/Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare partnership.
Outlets like the Tallahassee Democrat have reported on Grow Tallahassee’s Bugra Demirel of conducting polls some say are being used to influence public opinion. Emerging political blogs have published articles criticizing other political blog’s coverage of prominent officials. Rumors that a special tax district to fund part of it arose that had political figures including State Rep. Allison Tant criticizing online, accusing Grow Tallahassee of doing behind-the-scenes tactics including the push-poll. The conversation about that potential tax district was quickly snuffed out in a joint statement from Florida State University and TMH.
WFSU’s Tristan Wood spoke to both Rep. Tant and Demirel to get their perspectives on what has been going on, as well as what direction they think the TMH/FSU partnership should go.
This was the interview with Demirel.
It has been edited for brevity.
Wood: Can you explain your side of the story of this conversation with the Representative and this idea of a special tax district?
Demirel: Representative Tant and I have known each other for a little bit now, and I usually call her to get her advice and get her insight about the issues. And this was nothing different, and I reached out to her, and I just want to get her opinion about this whole hospital, TMH and FSU merger and academic health center MOU that we have in place. And we started talking about the proposal Commissioner William-Cox put forward. We started talking about the FAMU involvement, TSC involvement, and we were kind of bouncing ideas back and forth.
I think what went wrong, and what the representative misunderstood in that conversation was we were talking about a lot of hypotheticals, and one of the hypotheticals was that two models that usually, well, let me roll it back, two models that's been discussed about academic health centers. One model is the UF Shands model, and the second model is the Tampa General Model. And the idea was initially brought up by Commissioner Porter at October 1 special TMH meeting. And I just echoed the response that CEO Mark O'Bryant and the president of FSU gave regarding the Tampa General model, where Tampa General is drawing money through a taxing district, and that there is a Hillsborough County Hospital Authority that was created by the legislator and that's one option, and that's how USF and Tampa General did it.
And the other option is the UF Health and the Shand's model, which, in this particular case, TMH and FSU are headed to UF Health and Shands model. So, that was the conversation that I was having with the representative. I mean, among all these discussions, it was about a 30 to 35 minutes call. We have not proposed a taxing district. We never said that that should be done here locally. We are a business organization, and we don't support taxes. But beyond that, I don't think it's an appropriate application of a hospital authority in this case, because Florida State University is already willing to bring in funds and resources to make this happen, and we don't need a hospital authority in town.
Tristan Wood: One of the things she said in her conversation with me is that there's so many cooks in the kitchen. And I’ve read the posts you made, and there have been other political blogs emerging to opine and write stories about this process. Do you think there’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen on this issue and why do you think that would be?
Demirel: Well, I can tell you, I'm not one of those cooks, and we have been just supporting this process along the way. There are a lot of cooks in the kitchen on TMH side, if you ask my opinion, and I believe that TMHH does not have a unified process in this matter, and you could actually see that about The most recent conversations Mark O'Bryant had with Bethel Church and Reverend Holmes and how they agreed on the involvement of FAMU and TSC, but later on, the board came back and said that that's not what they agreed on, although their CEO agreed on it. It's my understanding, at least. So, in my opinion, there are a lot of cooks on the TMH side. FSU side is very unified on this matter, and they know exactly what they want, and they know exactly how to do it and how to get it done. And from the city side and from the community side, we are not involved in this process what-so-ever and we are just watching, I'm very excited about the potential outcome and what this can bring to our region, and particularly to our community here in Tallahassee, but by no means I or our organization been part of this whole negotiation or or we have not even I'm talking to the folks recently on each side you're just watching from our site, pretty much
Wood: I’m 26 years old and have lived in Tallahassee for three years now. What do you think that this partnership could mean for younger people that want to start their career and live in Tallahassee?
Demirel: So I'm 38 years old, and this particularly means a lot to me, to you and all the younger generation. And there are multiple benefits to this partnership. One, an immediate benefit is pretty much elevated and improved healthcare in our community, right?
This is the direct impact, but there are also economic impacts that happen. And when you look at Gainesville and Ocala area, you are seeing massive economic development surrounding the UF Health Shands ecosystem, right? Because this is just not about the hospital itself. This is about research, more research. Doctors coming in, the nurses and the Florida State and Florida State and FAMU and TSC students, graduating, but not leaving, potentially staying in town, getting employed by FSU Health and that ecosystem, which then turns into more vibrant young professional environment in Tallahassee, restaurants and hotels and activities and and concerts, all of that. This is just, this will be triggering a massive talent retention pool, and it will be triggering a lot of responses from industries that are surrounding FSU Health.
And overall, I believe it's just going to be great for our community, particularly when it comes to retaining talent in the medical field.
Wood: Is there anything about the articles that have been written about you that you want to respond to?
Demirel: We tend to shoot the messenger right, but we sometimes avoid looking into the facts and avoid looking into the message itself. In this case, Grow Tallahassee's involvement is purely from a healthcare and economic development standpoint. We would like to get this deal done, and we would like to get it done on behalf of the community.
I made a comment recently online that we are right now the only organization looking out for the residents driving two and a half three hours to get specialized and critical care. There are no other organizations right now locally standing up and saying, ‘Hey guys, get this done, please. And this is the reason why we are stepping in, because many other organizations are either conflicted out of this conversation, meaning they have some sort of relationship with each of those three parties, maybe the City of Tallahassee, maybe TMH, maybe Florida State University.
Once they have those relationships with them, they really cannot come out and say that, hey, we want to get this deal done, or they cannot call out the people that are slowing down the process or eventually trying to derail the process, to be honest with you, so we don't have any conflict. We are doing this on behalf of the community. We are stepping in to say that we really need this in Tallahassee and to all parties, please get this done for our community.