Even as Mayor Steve Bach and other city officials were sounding the alarm on a $1.15 million separation package for the former CEO of Memorial Health System, the chairman of Memorial’s board quietly inked the deal.

James Moore, chairman of Memorial’s Board of Trustees, signed the formal severance agreement the night before the City Council asked the board to resign or be removed, according to documents obtained by The Gazette under an open-records request.

The board met April 30, a Monday, and reaffirmed the separation agreement for Dr. Larry McEvoy after a firestorm of public outrage about the terms of the deal. It included $1 million in severance pay, a 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid and $20,000 to help find a new job.

The council had already scheduled a meeting for the next day, threatening to remove the board if it didn’t rescind McEvoy’s deal.

But by then, the deal was done.

“For your information, as a result of our vote, Dr. McEvoy and I finalized and signed the formal Separation Agreement at 7:15 pm Monday,” Moore wrote in an email to trustees the morning of May 1.

Council President Scott Hente said Friday that he didn’t know the final agreement had been signed until a couple of days ago.

“I don’t know anybody who’s happy about this,” Hente said. “But at the same time, I’ve got to make sure that what we do from the perspective of the city is legal and enforceable.”

City Attorney Chris Melcher has been looking at the city’s legal options regarding McEvoy’s severance. The council met Wednesday in executive session and emerged saying that they have more legal questions.

Moore had previously signed only the “terms of agreement,” which he said constituted a legally binding contract.

In an interview Friday, Moore said he didn’t believe that there was a “significant difference” between the term sheet and the final separation agreement.

“We had received advice that the terms of the separation constituted a contract and since the formal agreement did not in any significant way change the terms of the separation that had been previously agreed to, I felt that we needed to proceed with that because the board had agreed that that’s what we wanted to do,” he said.

When asked whether he paused before signing the final agreement given the controversy surrounding the terms of the deal, Moore said he didn’t.

“Based upon counsel I had received that I provided to other members of the board, I didn’t feel that there was a significant difference in the two documents,” he said.

Moore declined to say who provided him legal advice.

“I’m not at liberty to say who exactly I received counsel from. It’s subject to attorney-client privilege,” he said.

The May 1 email from Moore to the other trustees was among 28 pages of emails that Memorial provided Thursday under a Colorado Open Records Act request.

Other emails show that Moore stood firm that the separation package was fair.

“Ultimately, while the action has been portrayed by the media and many others as outrageous, in reality it is fair, and conservative by industry standards,” Moore wrote in an email to Hente.

That email was also sent May 1, after the one from Moore to the board.

“It is our consensus opinion that by virtually any standard – except perhaps in our community – the role and associated compensation agreements for the CEO of a half-billion dollar health system cannot be compared to that of a typical city manager or director level employee,” he wrote.

That firm stance ultimately led to the ouster of the board the following day.

Other emails show that trustees were keenly aware of the “groundswell” of public criticism surrounding the separation agreement offered to Dr. Larry McEvoy.

“We are being vilified in the Gazette as a result of two highly vocal, subjective and biased council members, considerable presumed reader response, and now the mayor jumping on the pile to condemn us and our actions,” former trustee Bill Crouch wrote in an email to Moore on April 28.

The day before, Memorial had announced the details of McEvoy’s separation agreement.

Crouch was apparently referring to Angela Dougan and Tim Leigh as the “biased council members.” Dougan and Leigh had publicly called for the removal of the board.

Crouch recommended that Moore issue a written response, saying the board’s decision was “based on achieving a 50th percentile compensation level with similar severance,” which he said was “certainly not excessive.”

“Larry’s only faults were to not be successful in achieving acceptance of his integrated care plan and not do well in the local PR scheme; otherwise he did improve the hospital financial status along with his other numerous qualities,” Crouch wrote.

“I think this groundswell of PR against the MHS Board may be us fired as a result of distorted information,” he added. “My request for consideration of a letter is to at least set the record straight as to our rationale for our actions. Don’t mind going down; just hate to see it happen based on distorted PR via the Gazette and the mayor and not the truth.”

Moore responded about 1 ½ hours later, saying he tended to agree.

“But in light of how we got here I am seeking (a) more emotionally detached perspective,” he wrote.

McEvoy’s last day at the city-owned hospital was May 4.

Larry McEvoy Photo by