The East Shoshone Hospital District hosted a public workshop Saturday to discuss the public's opinion on what to do with the district itself.

Since late August, select members of the Silver Valley community have been discussing whether the district is worth keeping or if it's just a tax burden on its constituents.

Three primary options have been discussed, the first being the district should stay in existence and remain as its own separate entity. The second option is for the East to merge with the West Shoshone Hospital District, keeping the financial burden to a minimum, but spreading it across the board for the Silver Valley. The final option, which has seen the most vocal support, is the option of shutting down the district completely.

The community workshop, with around 30 people in attendance, provided a forum for the discussion. Topics ranged from which of the existing options are best, to what future options could be taken.

James McMillan, chairman of the ESHD board, said the funds for the district have already been levied for this year, meaning it will be at least another year before any changes are made.

"A lot of members of the public who came, they were opposed," McMillan said. "They would either like to dissolve or consolidate with Kellogg and this meeting was right after the tax notices came out, so there is the sticker shock of people who haven't really been following this through the August budget process. So now we are hearing from those people and we will take these comments into consideration."

McMillan said two ideas garnered the board's consideration. First, it could copy the actions of Mullan and send a survey to the constituents of the ESHD to get a more thorough analysis on the public's opinion. He said this idea would be a good way to get feedback, but would cost money to mail the surveys.

The second idea was to have a vote in the next primary election, but McMillan said for that to happen it would require waiting till 2016 and the board would have to agree to this course of action.

In the meantime, there remains a question of what to do with the $243,129 already levied for the district. Mike Baker, CEO of Heritage Health in Coeur d'Alene, was in attendance to provide information on how the community could use those funds to work with Heritage Health to provide better health care to the citizens of the area.

"I fell like the meeting was a tremendous success," Baker said. "They were intense conversations with people either supporting, or not supporting, the issue on both sides, but at the end of the process I believe they landed with some really good direction and you can tell that people care about their community."

Baker said he believes discussion is the key to solving any issue and the workshop provided exactly that opportunity.

Cathleen Sanborn, director of Silver Valley Economic Development and concerned citizen, said she would like to see the survey plan go into effect.

"I think that they need to get the feedback from the community, because at their board meetings they are not really listening to people," Sanborn said. "Instead of listening to what people are saying, they are just getting defensive."

Sanborn has been a verbal advocate of the district being more transparent since the budget meeting in August.

There will be a meeting for the ESHD Wednesday night at the Sheriff's Office in Wallace. McMillan said the information gathered at the workshop will be discussed and the meeting is open to the public.