JCF board chaos: Ryder-Priola and Burchfiel resign

Board to gather at 4 p.m. today in a special meeting

 

By TOM LYDEN

Staff Writer

The John C. Fremont Healthcare District’s Board of Directors is once again in chaos with two abrupt resignations, just as the hospital faces some of its most serious financial challenges.

Behind-the-scenes drama on the board has led to the resignations of Chairperson Wendy Ryder-Priola and director Craig Burchfiel. 

Both heaped praise on CEO Stacey Kuzak, but offered a scathing critique of their fellow board members on their way out the door. 

“Lately I have been the recipient of hurtful, vicious and untrue rumors and lies by another board member,” Ryder-Priola said in a resignation letter she sent to the Mariposa Gazette. 

“Until we have five people who can check their egos, personal agendas and toxic behavior at the door and do the work a board is supposed to do, the hospital can’t succeed, no matter how great the CEO is,” Ryder-Priola wrote. 

“It starts at the top. Until that happens, we have no hope,” she concludes the letter. 

On Monday at 4 p.m., the board was scheduled to accept Ryder-Priola and Burchfiel’s resignations. It’s expected Rose Fluharty will be selected as chairperson. 

Burchfiel is leaving after only six months on the board. Burchfiel was appointed in October to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of Suzette Prue. 

In a phone interview with the Mariposa Gazette, Burchfiel was withering in his critique of the board and its “unprofessional backbiting.” 

Burchfiel said he and Ryder-Priola were the victims of “attacks that were horrendous.”

“I can’t personally be involved in something like that,” he said.

“I love this district and I love this community. I wanted to see change and to see what was happening at the very top,” Burchfiel said.

“It’s a crying shame, but the board is the issue and the problem for this district,” Burchfiel said. 

He suggested that some on the board had “no experience and no business sense.”

Burchfiel was the hospital’s Chief Information Officer for 12 years, until he was fired in October 2024 by former CEO Pat Ryan.

Burchfiel declined to go into specifics about any particular board members, but had only praise for Ryder-Priola and CEO Stacey Kuzak. 

He praised Ryder-Priola’s business acumen and said “she put her soul and heart into the district.”

Ryder-Priola’s tenure as board chair lasted for three and a half years, an unusually long time when standard practice is to change board officers annually. 

She held the leadership position during a particularly tumultuous time that saw a revolving door of hospital CEOs. 

For the last eight months, the board has presented itself as a collegial, professional and positive group with hardly any sharp disagreements.

That was in public, at least. Behind the scenes, it apparently got brutal. 

The facade partially cracked on April 22 when Ryder-Priola suddenly announced she was stepping down as chairperson and from the Ad Hoc Committee for the construction of the new hospital. 

At the time, Ryder-Priola cited health issues as her reason, but said she planned to remain on the board. 

Over the weekend, her calculation apparently changed and she decided to leave the board completely. Her tone changed as well.

“It seems that we can never get a full board of 5 members who have the experience & education to understand the full responsibilities of being a board member & the emotional intelligence to carry out the important tasks,” Ryder-Priola wrote. 

Historically, she said, there’s always been one or two board members who have “an agenda that is not in line with the best interest of the hospital.”

“That behavior continues to this day,” she said.

Ryder-Priola said she has watched employees and board members be “insulted, belittled, yelled at, verbally attacked, etc. by other board members who didn’t deserve it.”

“We have lost many good employees over this behavior,” she said.

Before her resignation letter on Monday, Ryder-Priola praised incoming chair Fluharty. 

“I have been mentoring Rose to take over the position for a while now and she is definitely ready,” Ryder-Priola said. 

“Rose is going to make an excellent chairman and I look forward to watching her excel and grow. The board is a team effort and everyone needs to know all aspects of the tasks at hand,” she said.

In addition to Fluharty, Teresa Johnson and Jesse Bullis remain on the board. 

It is likely they will need to appoint two people to serve as interim board members. 

Three of the five board positions will be up for reelection in November.