A sharply divided Morrill County Community Hospital Board voted 3-2 Wednesday to send a 60-day termination notice to Rural Health Development…which has managed the hospital in Bridgeport since January.

Board chairman Nick Lapeseotes opposed terminating the contract and resigned from the board after the vote.

Richard Clark, who cast the other new vote and moved from vice-chair to chairman with the resignation of Lapeseotes, won’t release any details about the board discussion that preceded the vote.

Clark says only that the board member who made the motion, and who Clark won’t identify, had opposed Rural Health Development in the first place and had “concerns about the results he was seeing.”

RHD President and former state treasurer Ron Ross says he felt the company was “making progress in helping the board move forward,” but that “the status quo is what they wanted and that is not us”…adding that he “wishes the hospital the best.”