North Suburban Hospital Board – Spring Lake Park

The North Suburban Hospital District covers Blaine, Fridley, Hilltop, Mounds View and Spring Lake Park. This year, the district will be electing one member from Spring Lake Park.

CAROL ANDERSON:

About: Carol Anderson has been a resident of Spring Lake Park since 1975. She is married to Mike Anderson and together they had two children, Christopher and Jennifer, both graduates of SLP High School. As an occupation, Carol Anderson received a degree from Concordia College Moorhead in Medical Technology and worked in hospitals from 1969 to 1995 and then at ViroMed Laboratories from 1995 to her retirement in 2009. In addition to her work, Carol has been very involved in District 16 when her children attended and also her church, St. Philip’s Lutheran Church in Fridley. Her hobbies are playing in two hand bell choirs, piano, singing in the choir, walking, spending time at the family cabin on Ottertail Lake, gardening, church committees and most recently being involved in the lives of her two grandchildren.

Important Issues: Carol has been on the North Suburban Hospital District Board for 4 years. Carol brings a lot to the board with her experience working in the medical field, several of those under the Allina umbrella. The board has done so much good for Unity Hospital. This board is not a governing board, and hasn’t been for 30+ year, but rather a board whose purpose is to distribute levied tax dollars from 5 communities for bricks and mortar projects at Unity. This board has had no authority over Allina Health and Allina Health has had no authority over this board. We work together for the well-being of Unity Hospital and its community.

Goals if Elected: Given the vote at our September 14, 2016 meeting to dissolve the board, I would very much appreciate your vote in November to give consistency to the board for the many decisions that will need to be made in the next year.

CORBIN MATTILA:

About: Corbin Mattila is a Transport Aide at Unity Hospital who is seeking the Spring Lake Park seat on the North Surburban Hospital Board. He has lived in the Hospital District (primarily Blaine and Spring Lake Park) nearly his entire life. Corbin is passionate about providing quality patient care at Unity and sees firsthand the problems that are caused by inadequate staffing and a general disinvestment of resources by Allina at our community hospital.

Corbin lives with his wife and 4 children in Spring Lake Park where his children attend school.

In addition to seeing the problems at Unity as an employee, Corbin is keenly aware of the way that Allina’s decisions create concerns for the community that the hospital is meant to serve. The school that his children have attended has been repeatedly put on “lock down” when potentially dangerous patients leave the hospital and wander into the surrounding neighborhoods. With Allina planning to increase the use of Unity as a Psychiatric and Addiction facility, these neighborhood safety concerns are sure to grow over the coming years if the Hospital Board doesn’t stand up for its constituents and hold Allina accountable.

Important Issues: Allina has also closed its Birth Center, which has forced Corbin and countless other families to travel further distances to give birth to their children.

After learning that Corbin and other candidates had filed to run for the Hospital Board in August, the current Board members quickly moved to pass resolutions to begin the dissolution of the Board itself. This act exemplifies the nontransparent and undemocratic way the Board and Allina have been operating and Corbin will work to reverse this decision if elected.

Corbin will also fight to make the Hospital Board more transparent and accessible to the residents of the District by creating a website and posting Board minutes and agendas widely throughout the community so people know when and where monthly meetings are being held and how to make their voices heard.

Goals if Elected: Corbin will work to reestablish the proper role of the Hospital Board which is to ensure that Unity is a full service community hospital that serves residents’ needs in Blaine, Spring Lake Park, Fridley, Mounds View and Hilltop. He will challenge fellow Board members to use their ownership of the hospital and surrounding property as power to hold Allina accountable for how it is operating inside the hospital. Corbin will be a leader that works with the community to ensure that the millions of dollars that have already been invested in Unity are not squandered by dissolving the board and handing it over to a large corporation like Allina.

Few residents know that the Board exists and that they have been paying approximately $2 million dollars a year in property taxes to support the hospital.