It is likely that Chautauqua County Executive PJ Wendel was not one of the better faces to speak in favor of New York state releasing $70 million in funding for a new Brooks-TLC Hospital System facility in Fredonia. This is the individual who is consistently criticizing — along with other officials across the state — Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plans to withhold $4 million in federal Medicaid funding that was originally earmarked for this county.

“We need accessible healthcare in Chautauqua County, especially in the north county. I am committed to making sure the governor hears our voice,” Wendel said at the rally. “She’s heard it from (state Sen. George Borrello), she’s heard it from (Assemblyman Andrew Goodell), she’s heard it from me, she’s heard it from the mayors. Now she needs to hear it from everyone else, because you are the backbone. You are the ones who, hopefully, can get her to change her mind, release the funds, and support healthcare in northern Chautauqua County. It’s dire, we need it, and I stand here committed with you.”

Wendel is far from being as committed to the project as he says. In the spring, he put his foot in his mouth during a radio interview regarding the project when he was asked a question about the health-care operation’s future. Instead of being on board, he said the north county needed to do more to address mental health.

That poor choice for an answer insulted Brooks-TLC employees. “The words (Wendel) speaks do not support the hundreds of workers and thousands of community members who are relying on a hospital in this area,” a registered nurse wrote at the time. “How can you be elected to a position by the very people you are hurting?”

In terms of financial support, Wendel and the county also have been a big zero. While criticizing the withholding of $4 million in Medicaid by Hochul to a county where the annual budget will be going up to $290 million in 2024, legislators are sitting on a $37 million surplus. None of that cash has gone to help a fiscally troubled hospital while the state has invested more than $40 million over four years to keep “accessible healthcare” and Brooks-TLC open.

County officials and Wendel, instead of criticizing the $4 million withholding, need to be thanking the state for its assistance in keeping the Dunkirk hospital open. Instead, Wendel just keeps it political by bashing a powerful Democrat in Hochul.

County politics — if we haven’t already noticed — won’t get a new Brooks-TLC built. State funding, through the governor and Health Department, will.