6 March 19 - 25, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents $300,000, officials said in a statement — be- came moot and was subsequently canceled. “They did not want this to go to the citi- zens,” Morris said. “And after it did, all of a sudden, they flipped, and were ready to bulk up and fight with a lot more money than any of us have. So was I comfortable with that thought and having this become just more drama? This was wrong to start with. It just needed to be killed.” Mary Ehlenfeldt works as an accounts receivable manager from her west Garland home most of the time. The 65-year-old has insurance through her employer, which in- cludes a telehealth program. But that costs $40 per visit in out-of-pocket fees. She’s also had cancer twice: ovarian can- cer 24 years ago and breast cancer 15 years ago. Ehlenfeldt survived both, but the toll on her body left her “severely” immunocom- promised and she has semi-regular bouts of respiratory issues, she said. After attending a council meeting where MD Health Pathways representatives were signing people up for the free access period, she said she signed up and used the program three times. “It saved me an amazing amount of co- pays. I’ve used it a few times,” Ehlenfeldt said. “And my granddaughter, who lives with me, she’s an adult, but she lives in my home. She was able to use the service because she lives in my home. And you know, otherwise, she would have had to go pay an exorbitant amount of money to see a doctor because she doesn’t have insurance,” She said she was “angry” when the referen- dum was canceled after the contract was ter- minated, and that, in her mind, control of the narrative had been lost to a vocal minority. “People need to know that this was taken away from us without a vote,” Ehlenfeldt said. “They were complaining that we didn’t vote for it, so when they said we’re going to put it to a vote, then they said, ‘No, we’re not going to vote. You don’t get the vote on it. We’re taking it away.’ So yeah, you all took away our vote too. Thanks.” “Not Going To Go Away” C ouncil member Carissa Dutton was initially one of the program’s most outspoken advocates. Her district is home to a large number of uninsured and underinsured people, she said. She’s seen neighbors struggle with healthcare needs and felt the program would have provided needed access to vul- nerable residents. “It was being able to have access for resi- dents at an extremely low cost,” Dutton said. “Because otherwise they wouldn’t have, you know, it kind of bridges that gap of, ‘Do I buy groceries or do I go to urgent care?’” Dutton said that while she still supports the program, her issue was with the imple- mentation. She said MD Health Pathways could have been more transparent at times, but also thought council members could have been better informed, which hampered the roll- out. Dutton works two jobs outside of council and felt the plan was rushed through com- mittee before council members had been properly briefed. Former City Manager Jud- son Rex, whose contract was not renewed in December, played a part in the rollout’s is- sues, she said. “We rely on our staff to have things pre- pared and ready, and all of the due diligence part really done before it gets brought to council, and because of our former city man- ager, that didn’t happen the way that I would have liked it to today,” Dutton said. She also said that she would have liked to start community engagement earlier, but was advised against doing so by city staff. When contacted, Rex declined to comment for this story. When asked if the turnover in the city manager’s office contributed to the pro- gram’s failure, Mayor Hedrick said, “Abso- lutely not.” While acknowledging that “the need is not going to go away” in Garland and that she still thinks Tap Telehealth is a valuable program, Dutton said the discourse had reached a breaking point, making support- ing it untenable. “Things had just gotten so far out of hand and out of control that I did not feel like we were going to be able to recover from it,” Dut- ton said. “The hate messages that we were getting were just insane. Threats of recall, just insane messages coming in, nonstop, 24/7, we’re getting blamed for the ice storm.” Why Didn’t People Know? P erritt had a tense exchange with the in- terim city manager and Hedrick at the Feb. 3 community meeting, in which he said the city had refused to send text notifica- tions about the program to all Garland resi- dents. The city manager said the texts in question would have required the city’s emer- gency notification system and would have di- minished its effectiveness, while Hedrick said the mailers would have required city funding not covered by the contract. “We were fulfilling our contractual obli- gations as part of the city, going out in the mailers in the utility bill system, and posts on social media,” Hedrick said in an inter- view. “So they’re always welcome to go above and beyond that if they wanted to market it further. Both he and Perritt agreed that too few knew about the $6 tariff. Neither could agree who was ultimately responsible. When asked whether the city had failed to hold up its end of the partnership, Perritt said, “We do. Absolutely.” He said the city’s inability or unwilling- ness to set a launch date was affecting the program’s rollout and community engage- ment. In a statement, City Manager Mike Betz said that the “city began upgrading its utility billing software to enable the addition of the program fee on the utility bill. An offi- cial program launch date was expected to be set once the upgrade was complete. ” The city had originally planned to complete up- grades in the spring, but technical issues with its billing vendor delayed the project until early summer, staff told council mem- bers at a January work session. Perritt also pointed to the portion of the master agreement outlining the city’s mini- mum community engagement initiatives. The issues with community engagement, he said, ultimately torpedoed the program. According to the agreement, the city was responsible for “sending periodic informa- tional mailers or bill inserts about the pro- gram, posting about the program on the City’s official social media accounts several times per year, including program informa- tion in materials provided to new residents, and collaborating with PPTX (Physicians Pathways PLLC) to present the program at community events or health fairs.” “It was the city’s obligation to promote the program through utility billings, notify- ing the community of the opt-out mecha- nism. … They were obligated to do that through their city channels, through their Facebook, through mailers, some of which had been done,” Perritt said. “Most of it, be- cause the city wasn’t doing it, we kind of felt the onus on ourselves.” However, the city mailed at least two util- ity bill inserts with opt-out information, posted to social media accounts multiple times and hosted an MD Health Pathways tent at Garland’s annual Christmas on the Square event, in addition to town halls and other community events, as stipulated by the contract. Still, Hedrick said the council could have slowed the process down originally to gather more residents’ opinions. “We frequently make decisions where they’re not rushed, but we meet all of the no- tification requirements,” he said. “And I know it’s difficult with everyone’s busy lives to follow everything that’s being done on the City Council all the time, but it could have certainly done a better job of getting a sense of input from the beginning.” In the end, he couldn’t have supported any opt-out program, he said, especially knowing some residents might not read util- ity bills line by line or be aware of the fee. And by February, a large number still weren’t. “I’ve had community meetings with vari- ous neighborhood groups and concerned citizens, and some of them didn’t even know about the program at all,” Hedrick said. “Even with the best efforts of MD Health to try to reach our citizens, there’s still always someone who isn’t aware, and they simply didn’t know about the program.” Looking Forward G arland still doesn’t have a hospital, and ambulances are still running resi- dents to out-of-town hospitals, send- ing them to ER doctors like Perritt, who said Garland “is not the end” for his company. “Anytime you’re offering a service that disrupts the current process of billing $1,500 for strep throat in an ER and offering it for $9 unlimited to do in your home, you’re go- ing to see some friction, but we’re offering a new health care infrastructure,” Perritt said. Hedrick said he is not opposed to tele- health and that the city will continue trying to lure another hospital to Garland, nearly a decade after Baylor Scott and White closed its doors. “The hospitals also have a profit incen- tive, and if they can’t make their numbers work with the number of uninsured patients that they had, It’s very difficult to get a hos- pital to come back,” Hedrick said. “But we’re certainly working on addressing those kind of issues.” Almost immediately after the city can- celed its contract, council members unani- mously approved an agreement with RightSite. The service will connect non- emergency EMS patients with virtual care on-scene and, hopefully, stave off long am- bulance trips to surrounding cities for over- loaded emergency personnel. The city is also in talks with Parkland Health to offer telehealth services at city buildings or non- profit locations “I appreciate everyone being so engaged on this proposal. The proposition of health- care is continuing to be important in the city of Garland,” Hedrick said. “And again, we’re working to truly try to get a hospital back or other means, with RightSite or health pods, to do something for our citizens, to address the health care needs we have.” Unfair Park from p4 Mike Brooks Former three-time council member and mayoral candidate Deborah Morris opposed the MD Health Pathways contract.
