Opinion: Community should bear its share

From an opinion column in today's Winston-Salem Journal by Len B. Preslar Jr., the president and CEO of N.C. Baptist Hospital:

One rationale expressed by the commissioners for not financing the (Winston-Salem Downtown Health) plaza is that the county should finance only initiatives or services that are legally mandated as county responsibility. What a sad state of affairs we would find in our community if all parties were to adopt this ideology! If that were followed universally, such things as schools, recreation and economic incentives would be seriously compromised. Is the health of its most vulnerable citizens - and by extension all of its citizens - any less important?