This episode is unique in that we talk live and in person with the mayor of a suburban town that has seen extraordinary growth and posed for more. The perspective of a consumer who has lived in this city all her life, a view as a new city councilwoman during the COVID-19 pandemic, to a newly sworn in mayor. What is such a perspective from someone outside our industry and the work she sees is necessary to improve healthcare in such a thriving suburban town that currently cannot meet the needs of its residents. A great conversation with Pooler, GA Mayor Karen Williams.
Guest: Karen Williams – Mayor, Pooler GA
Mayor Williams was elected in 2023 and began her term in January 2024. As a military wife for decades, service to country and local community involvement are an integral part of her character, and she uses those attributes in her role as mayor to serve our community. Her commitment to further her education in municipal governance is shown by her earning three out of five levels of certification. In just four years, she has completed over 170 hours of training with the University of Georgia, Carl Vinson Institute of Government and the Georgia Municipal Association and is currently working toward her fourth certificate.
Transcript
Speaker 1:
Welcome to Beyond the Stethoscope Vital Conversations with SHP. On last week’s episode we talked with Congressman Buddy Carter about healthcare from the perspective of the federal government, but today we’re going to zoom in just a little bit closer to home, literally. Our guest today is Mayor Carinelle Williams, the newly sworn in mayor of Pooler, georgia. We’ll talk to her about how healthcare has shaped her community and how she would like to see healthcare better. Engage with her in the city. Are you ready for this vital conversation? Let’s get started. Welcome to Beyond the Stethoscope Vital Conversations with SHP. I’m your co-host, aaron C Higgins, joined by my other co-host and partner in crime, jason Crosby. How are you doing, jason? Doing great, aaron. Glad to be part of Season 4. Well, I am very excited because we have a very special episode today and we are recording it live at Pooler City Hall with our honored guest, pooler Mayor Karen L Williams. Hello, karen, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, jason and Aaron. It’s my privilege to be here. I’m excited because I have a feeling that I’m going to do some learning at the same time as we talk today, so thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:
Well, okay, let’s set the stage a little bit and a little bit of a disclaimer. Karen is my mayor and my friend, because I live in the city of Pooler, but I also serve on the Pooler City Council I’m Mayor Pro Tem. So today, however, I’m taking off my Pooler Council hat and I’m putting on my podcaster earphones, as it were.
Speaker 1:
So to keep me on track and make sure I don’t go into Pooler politics. Jason is right at my elbow and he will jab me in the ribs if I start getting into political politics. So with that, let’s start our conversation. So before we dive into all the health care questions, karen, we’d love to learn a little bit more about you. Can you share with our listeners what got you into politics? What encouraged you to run for local office?
Speaker 2:
Well, public service has been a lifelong endeavor of mine, Even as a small child. Helping others gives me that satisfaction and purpose and also sets an example for my grandchildren. For instance, I ran for council because I wanted to continue to help my community in other ways, such as municipal governance. What could I do to help the laws and the ordinances of the city to help the residents? I then ran for mayor to continue that service and to be a spokesperson for our community. So a lot goes into that, but basically it’s public service. Having that service heart for others is what drove me to public service as far as an elected position goes.
Speaker 3:
Karen, this is a great perspective. I’m glad we’re really talking to you. As we mentioned before, I’m really interested, given your unique perspective as a long-time resident now as mayor, previous city council what your insights are regarding the health care needs in the community now as mayor and what are some of those pain points, if you will, of the residents as you see it.
Speaker 2:
Well, I want to have my own disclaimer, so to speak. I am not an expert on health care by any means. However, I can offer to you my opinions from what I have experienced, what I’ve heard from my community and what I see in our community. So, in my opinion, healthcare encompasses many aspects, for instance, emergency care, obesity, the uninsured, and Pooler’s growth has been exponential and fast-paced, and so our services and infrastructure they’re trying to play catch up, so that includes healthcare. So there are things that I would love to see in in Pooler regarding health care, but I realize at the same time it takes time for that to happen and it takes a communication both ways with health care providers and the city to let them know what our needs are.
Speaker 3:
As a quick follow-up to that, do you see there being a sort of a bridge, if you will, between you’re a consumer obviously you mentioned grandchildren, you’ve got family in the community, you’ve got your fingertips on the pulse, if you will, and then trying to work with healthcare providers, even if they’re not in the city of Puller, maybe helping provide services to those in the community? Do you feel that maybe that’s a plus, if you will, that you’ve been a consumer previous to being in your current role and you’re able to sort of balance that act, if you will, of okay as a consumer? I know there’s this needs in my community. How can I work with providers to provide those services here in Puller?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. How can I work with providers to provide those services here in Peboy? Absolutely, it’s an advantage because, like you said, I’ve experienced not only my grandchildren’s health care but my own health care. My parents live here too. They’re seniors. That has a whole different realm of health care needs for seniors. So, again, I think it’s communication that’s going to be vital between those health care providers and the municipal government of all the municipalities in Chatham County. Actually, even though Savannah has three full-size hospitals with emergency care and all the ancillary departments, pooler has zero. We have a partial mini hospital but there’s no emergency care. And they have phase 2 and phase 3 that they’re wanting to start, but when? You know? So I need to have more conversations with all health care providers to let them know what our needs are, both as an individual and as the mayor representing the city.
Speaker 1:
You bring up a really good point about emergency care, right? So I am going to sneak my head on a little bit as a resident of Pooler and as someone in Pooler government. We’ve had a lot of conversations with the hospitals about why can’t you build a hospital out here in Pooler? And, of course, at least in our state, the state of Georgia, we still have the certificate of need.
Speaker 1:
I know all of our- Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you want to look at it Right, and in some states, some states have repealed theirs or other states have greatly modified theirs. I know the state of Georgia is looking at radically changing the certificate of need program. How does that represent to the city a barrier to care? Maybe I’m overstating it, but do you see that as a barrier of care? Do you see that as stopping people from receiving emergency services? You know? You’ve kind of become the local expert on CON, so I’d be curious to hear from a municipal perspective what your opinion on that is.
Speaker 2:
Well, I wouldn’t say I’m an expert, but I have learned a lot recently about CONs. I’ve actually met with some hospitals to get their point of view and I see all the different points of view on the need for a certificate of need. But then I see the other needs, which is my community needs of why it should either be repealed or loosened a bit, and that is in the legislative process right now. The Senate has dropped their bill, the House has dropped their bill and we know how that goes. It goes back and forth until they reach hopefully reach a consensus. So I have let my legislators know how I feel about it. What poolers needs are.
Speaker 2:
I’ve asked for residents to send me emails and I’ve got a whole folder of that trying to get the pulse on how the residents feel about having emergency care, and the general consensus is that they want some type of emergency care, whether it’s a standalone ER or whether it’s part of a hospital building a hospital system system. To be perfectly honest with you, I don’t really have an opinion on which way. I just want it to happen. You know, whether it’s a standalone ER or whether it’s a hospital with an ER. I feel it’s a need for our community. We have lost people because we did not have a hospital here in the. Between the ambulance times, the 911 issues that we’re having and then the travel time to the hospitals in Savannah, it’s not good for our residents. We don’t have the access and the care that we need, and that’s something that we need to definitely address and stay on top of now Pooler is a community that has had tremendous growth.
Speaker 1:
Right right 20 years ago we were jokingly a one stoplight town. We had a couple more stoplights, but it felt like that certainly. We went from 5,000 people to you know unofficial estimates put us around 30,000. So that’s a lot of tremendous growth in a very short period of time. How do you see the opportunities or the challenges from that kind of rapid growth and what can? As a city leader, what can you do to help address some of those challenges?
Speaker 2:
The biggest challenge with any type of exponential growth is going to be communication. In my opinion, we have to be able to communicate with all of our partners, whether it’s health care, schools, whatever all the needs that a growing city needs. We need to have better communication, and that includes with our health care network providers, whether it’s hospitals, specialty care. Our growth has just been so fast. You know, we’re the number one state to do business in, and that’s awesome, but we also need to make sure that we’re providing the care that our city needs, and health care is a huge aspect of that care.
Speaker 3:
To follow that up, uh, karen, you mentioned well and aaron’s mentioned as well the growth of polar has been just tremendous and it doesn’t seem like as if that’s necessarily going to slow down and so, as you’ve mentioned, you’re trying to do all that you can to sort of meet the current needs of that growth. But then there’s also this future growth coming as well. How do you address that, knowing you’ve got to have this perspective of I’ve got needs today by my residents, but I know there’s future residents by this tremendous growth that’s going to continue? How do you balance and keep that perspective to make sure that future growth maybe is somewhat met as well?
Speaker 2:
It is a difficult thing to deal with. Being proactive versus reactive is something that I constantly try to keep in mind in any decisions that the city makes, because when you’re being proactive, you are looking toward the future. You are looking at what the future needs are versus what you’re dealing with currently. But, like you said, you have to address both what you’re currently dealing with and then what your future needs are going to be. So, being proactive mindset, having that proactive mindset, is definitely the way to go with that and all we can do is try our best. And again, I keep going back to communication. I mean, even with the school system, they weren’t getting our reports on our growth and how many apartments we were building till I made sure that they were getting those reports. So now they know what our numbers.
Speaker 1:
are you?
Speaker 2:
know we have to have somewhere for school children to go to. It’s the same with the health care. I need to find a way to report to the health care providers what our numbers and our projections are so they can properly plan for our community, and that’s what I don’t think has happened in the past. The healthcare providers have been left out of those projections and we need to correct that.
Speaker 3:
That’s a great point. I’m going to take us back a few years if you will. We just had the COVID-19 pandemic. We all went through. But you also again bring that unique perspective. You were in office at the time and so you got to see it from that perspective as well. How did that experience at that time while in office influence your thinking of healthcare accessibility? Right, you obviously saw it from a consumer perspective, but again, you’re in office. How did that influence what you think of accessibility and maybe how you bring that thinking or that perspective now as mayor going forward for Polar.
Speaker 2:
Well, we were brand new council members when COVID-19 hit and it was scary for everybody because we were getting different ideas and thoughts from all different sources. Different ideas and thoughts from all different sources. So I really feel that, as a victim of COVID-19 in 2020, with double pneumonia etc. I can speak to the fact that it was a scary time, but I think we could have done some things differently. In hindsight. It’s always 2020, and with anything new, you always have after-action things that you know that you can do better. Of course, I have my own opinions of what could have been done differently.
Speaker 2:
I do feel that we need to do a better job in case we have another pandemic and it may not be COVID-19. It could be something completely different. We need to have stockpiles of PPUs. We need to have this N95 mask already in storage for our seniors, for our first responders and our healthcare workers, so that we’re not out trying to buy them from other countries. We have a large stockpile of those accessible. I also would have liked to have seen our Department of Public Health be a little bit more involved with Zoom meetings, with radio interviews, getting as much information out to the public as we possibly can, and I think that’s something that could have been better during that pandemic. For one, I remember one night, very sick from COVID-19, and I wrote what I called a love letter to the residents of Pooler. It’s still on my Facebook page where said look guys, I’m scared too, You’re scared, but we can get through this together. And there was a lot that I think could have helped with that situation, and one would have been communication, more communication.
Speaker 1:
You bring up a great point communication and communicating with the public and involving at least here in Georgia we call the DPH Department of Public Health, Other states may call it something different but involving public health resources and the city together. Because our city, we don’t have our own public health agency, we rely on the state’s DPH to be ours. We rely on the state’s DPH to be ours. So how would you envision a city utilizing those resources for public good, either through improved communication but what does that actually look like? But also, on the other side of the coin, how can, how can our audience members, which are primarily hospitals and practices, how could they get involved? How would you envision involving, say, a private practice or a hospital network or someone like that, with furthering public health information and that sort of thing?
Speaker 2:
to see things like a health fair where doctors, pharmacies can come out, give out information If it’s during a pandemic, they can offer vaccines and hopefully some providers would offer free services, especially for the uninsured, which is another problem with healthcare. I would like to see Zoom meetings. I would like to see clinics. I would also like to see and I know this is a crazy idea, but what about extended hours for all the shift workers that we have in our community? Gulfstream alone has three different shifts and the normal business hours of eight to five doesn’t always fit with not just shift workers, but with families. Hours of eight to five doesn’t always fit with not just shift workers, but with families. I would like to see an urgent care or a specialty clinic give one day a week with nighttime hours, to facilitate this. I think it would be packed, I think it would be full and it would also, you know, help our residents to get the care that they need, whether it’s preventive care or whether it’s medical care.
Speaker 1:
You bring up an excellent point, karen. I know this is not your bailiwick, but there’s the Quality Payment Program or QPP, and one of the elements of QPP is an improvement activity of extended business hours, kind of describing exactly what you’re saying there, where one night a week a clinic is open until midnight or they offer late into the evening type hours, or on weekends, saturdays and Sundays. Maybe they normally wouldn’t offer that sort of thing. The federal government sees that need too, so it’s kind of funny that you point that out from a local level that you see that need.
Speaker 1:
but you’re right. We have a lot of shift work in our area not just at Gulfstream, but we’re going to soon have a Hyundai EV plant and they’re going to have three shifts there too, so we’re certainly going to see a higher demand for that sort of thing. You’re pointing out a huge, huge need and a forward need too, not just now, but in the future.
Speaker 2:
And that’s something that I feel that I should probably communicate with our healthcare providers. Look, let’s be proactive. We know these massive workforces coming to our area with shift work, with needs, and we need to be prepared and proactive to meet those needs.
Speaker 3:
I know we’re a few more minutes. We’ve talked a lot about the growth in Pooler and access and needs and such. Do you see in your role currently that with such a growing city municipality which obviously there’s others around the country that I think would benefit from hearing what your feedback may be that not having access to care in such a growing town will ultimately cause folks to leave that town? Do you see that being the case if, if you’re not able to meet that future growth or any other impact for not being able to meet the health care needs?
Speaker 2:
Jason, you’re spot on, but it’s not just health care, it’s basic infrastructure, you know, it’s schools. When you have a growing city, you have many needs that need to be met and you have to be proactively thinking about all those needs, healthcare being a vital one, and we have a lot of seniors that are settling in Pooler because it is a nice, safe, growing city with the needs that they have, and we’re finding that a lot of seniors are wanting to age in place. So that’s where the at-home care comes into play, and I think that’s something that really needs to be expanded in our area, as well as senior living areas, senior assisted living areas, and so, again, communication with our health care providers to let them know what our needs are and what our demands are going to be looking like in the future is pivotal.
Speaker 1:
So just to kind of put a fine point on that. So for our listeners, we like giving them an action takeaway. What can they do? So obviously not all of our listeners are in Pooler, georgia, otherwise I think you’d be very busy fielding phone calls. But what should the average doctor or hospital or practice administrator be doing? Should they call their mayor? What would you like to see medical practitioners from all stripes? What would you like to see them do with their local governments?
Speaker 2:
I don’t think you can put it just on them to reach out. I think it should be a joint venture. I mean, I’ve already reached out to the president CEOs of our two major hospitals to get an appointment with them to talk about our needs in Pooler, and so that’s being set up currently. But when I have those discussions with them, that’s when I’ll bring up we need to have meetings, quarterly or whatever it is, so that we can discuss these needs in our proactive vision, because they can’t help us if we don’t help them with the information that they need to do their job.
Speaker 2:
And cities are not in the business of building hospitals. Hospitals build hospitals and where they see a need and they know that they can be profitable and provide the service, they will. But if they don’t know where the need is, we might not be on their vision screen. I want Pooler to be on their minds. So that’s why I’m in constant contact with our legislators. The more they hear from Pooler, the more likely we’re going to get help. And so if the hospitals don’t hear from us, if the school board doesn’t hear from us, if our legislators don’t hear from us, they think we’re fine, we don’t have any needs. We do have needs. We’re growing so exponentially, so it’s effectively.
Speaker 1:
They need to set up a two-way street, they need to be proactive, but they also need to be willing to listen and hear. You know, with with pooler, we’ve grown so much since our last census. Our census is already out of date, and by about 5 000 people, and that census was just what three years ago when it got finalized Correct. That’s insanity and I don’t think our healthcare providers necessarily know that.
Speaker 1:
I know, not everywhere in the United States is growing as quickly as we are, but there certainly is growth happening, so I think you’re right, karen. I really appreciate your time with us today, thank, you. Yeah, this has been an episode of Beyond the Stethoscope Vital Conversations with SHP. If you enjoyed this podcast, please be sure to rate and share it with your friends. It sure helps the show.
Speaker 3:
Production and editing by Nala Weed. Social media by Jeremy Miller.
Speaker 1:
And our co-hosts are me, aaron C Higgins and Jason Crosby. Our show producers are Mike Scribner and John Crew.
Speaker 3:
Thank you for listening and we’ll see you next time.
Speaker 1:
But before we go, I think Jason has a really important question to ask you.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, oh no, here we go. This is the most important one of the day. Okay, is a hot dog, a sandwich?
Speaker 3:
This is the most important one for today let’s do this Is a hot dog, a sandwich.
Speaker 2:
What Is a hot dog? A sandwich? Well, it has bread, it has meat and it has condiments. So my first impression would be yes.
Speaker 3:
There we go. I’m with her 100%. She gets my vote.