People choosing to mail back their ballots need to have them postmarked by Tuesday. They also can be returned at the auditor's office in Prosser or Richland or at the Kennewick office at the corner of Grant and Canal streets. Voters also may drop off their ballots from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Badger Mountain Elementary School in south Richland, Finley Elementary School and West Highlands Methodist Church, Washington Elementary School and Desert Hills Middle School in Kennewick. Voters are being asked whether to consolidate Kennewick General with Kadlec. A new nonprofit corporation would be formed to run the hospitals, with Kadlec giving its assets to the corporation and Kennewick General's being sold to it.
State law prohibits public assets from being given away.
Kennewick General now is a public hospital, and Kadlec is a private, nonprofit hospital. Copyright 1998 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Under the proposed settlement, nurses who worked 12-hour shifts in 1995 and 1996 would get about 90 cents in back pay for each hour they worked.