Arguing that officials shouldn’t be so hasty to pull unused funds from the Health Department, Hamilton County commissioners shot down a proposal from Mayor Weston Wamp that would have diverted $250,000 to support dental services by Clínica Médicos.
“I got a number of calls from other medical providers (asking) that, if we’re giving out money, why not them,” Commission Chairman Chip Baker, R-Signal Mountain, told his colleagues Wednesday. “I read in the paper today that no one else applied. They didn’t know how to apply. I have a problem with the process.”
Several commissioners stressed that the vote wasn’t a reflection of Clínica Médicos, which they praised for its work serving the community, but rather had lingering questions and issues with how the proposal ended up in front of them.
The organization recently broke ground on a new 8,000-square-foot facility across from Montague Park on East 23rd Street, which is intended to help meet the behavioral and dental health needs of the region’s underserved and the growing Latino population.
The $250,000 would have come out of the Hamilton County Health Department’s primary care clinic budget and been diverted to the Médicos Mission Fund, a nonprofit organization formed in 2021 to fund Clínica Médicos’ new dental and behavioral health facility.