Votes at a glance: Council approves hospital property purchase, amends rainy-day item and passes multiple appropriations

Hamilton County Council members voted on multiple resolutions and budget appropriations at their Oct. 1 meeting, including an appropriation tied to the planned purchase of real estate from Riverview Hospital and a change to a rainy-day fund appropriation from $21 million to $17 million. Many departmental transfers and smaller appropriations were also approved by roll call.

The most consequential votes were: the council’s approval of an additional appropriation to purchase excess real estate from the Board of Trustees of Riverview Hospital and a separate resolution approving transfer of that real estate to the Hamilton County Hospital Association. Legal counsel said these steps are part of a previously approved financing plan, and the purchase price discussed at the meeting was $17,000,000. The council voted to amend an item that had listed $21,000,000 and set the amount at $17,000,000 before the roll call approval.

Beyond the hospital-related measures, the council approved a long list of appropriation and transfer items across county funds and departments. Among the items approved by roll call were:

- Aviation: additional appropriation of $296,562 — approved. - Community corrections: transfer of $4,000 — approved. - Council: reduction of $2,078,007 — approved. - Court administration: transfer of $73,000 — approved. - Building and grounds: transfer of $20,000 — approved. - Surveyor: additional appropriation of $106,750 — approved. - Highway: 1.44 amendments and related transfers — approved. - Hamilton County Regional Utility District: additional appropriation of $2,078,000 — approved. - Solid Waste: additional appropriation of $80,000 — approved (amount available shown as $3,518,167.14). - Cumulative capital development: transfer of $11,500 — approved. - Electronic map generation (Fund 1150): additional appropriation of $60,000 — approved (amount available $237,488.41). - Rainy Day (Fund 1186): amended from $21,000,000 to $17,000,000 and approved. - Prosecutor forfeiture (Funds 12–34): transfer of $44,700 — approved. - Opioid restricted (Fund 1237): additional appropriation of $578,000 — approved (amount available $2,093,810.59). - FSSA (phone 4925): additional appropriation of $103,553.89 — approved. - Grants items: a bundled vote approving several grant appropriations/transfers (items 1–6) — approved.

Motions to approve minutes, claims and routine items were also adopted. Where the meeting transcript showed only a roll-call “Aye” for each member, the council’s actions are reported here as approved; specific mover/second attributions were not consistently recorded in the transcript and are therefore not attributed to named members.

Votes recorded by roll call were uniformly “Aye” on the listed items; the transcript did not record dissenting votes for these motions.

Ending: The council closed multiple public hearings and adjourned after routine announcements. Several items (notably the tourism BEST fund distributions) were discussed but not appropriated on Oct. 1 and were scheduled for formal appropriation action when the auditor and state gateway timing will permit (the tourism item was discussed for formal appropriation in January).