The CEO of Baptist Health of Montgomery was sent a draft of the Elmore County hospital request for proposals weeks before the county’s economic development authority issued it publicly, according to emails filed in Elmore County Circuit Court.
Elmore County Economic Development Authority CEO Richie Beyer sent the draft at 7:56 a.m. on June 15 under the subject line “Mercury Draft RFP,” according to a filing made public Thursday. The email was addressed to “Taskforce Members.”
“Attached is a first draft of an RFP for healthcare services for the group to begin review and comment,” Beyer wrote.
Among the recipients was Russ Tyner, CEO of Baptist Health of Montgomery. Also copied was Lee Greer, chief financial officer at Tallassee Community Hospital, which competes with Ivy Creek Healthcare in the region. Other recipients included the development authority’s chairman, Elmore County Healthcare Authority chairman Frank Barnett, Mark Baker of the Montgomery accounting firm Jackson Thornton, Tim Gothard and Justin Barrett.
The development authority issued the request for proposals publicly in July, seeking a partner to build a replacement hospital in the county. Responses were due September 1. Ivy Creek, which has operated Elmore Community Hospital under a lease from the Healthcare Authority since 2000, sued the development authority and the Healthcare Authority in late August, alleging the solicitation was built around a Baptist proposal code-named “Project Mercury.”
The allegations about Baptist in that complaint were made on information and belief, a phrase lawyers use for claims based on belief rather than firsthand knowledge. The June email is the first document in the case to place Baptist’s chief executive inside the process.
“Baptist and ECEDA collaborated in putting together the RFP, which appears to have been designed to have a veneer of impartiality,” Ivy Creek’s attorneys wrote. “But the RFP was a sham; the ‘task force’ that drafted the ‘Mercury RFP’ was infested with ECEDA members who had a vested interest in awarding the project to Baptist Health.”
The filing states that the development authority began Project Mercury in 2024 and did not tell the Healthcare Authority, the public board that owns the hospital, until August 2025.
The following month, Elmore County Probate Judge Jason Britt, who sits on the Healthcare Authority board, wrote the board to object to how the proposal had been handled.
“Recent disclosures indicate that the Elmore County Economic Development Authority (ECEDA) has been working on this project for some time and may have even secured land for a potential hospital site,” Britt wrote on September 16, 2025. “Yet, the Healthcare Authority Board is only now being asked to consider it.”
Britt asked how long the proposal had been in development, who had been involved before the Healthcare Authority was told, and what financial, contractual or property commitments had been made with Baptist Health. Ivy Creek’s filing states it is not clear the board ever received answers.
The emails were filed in support of Ivy Creek’s request to subpoena Jackson Thornton for records showing how the development authority is funded. The development authority has argued its conduct was justified and has objected to the subpoenas as irrelevant. Ivy Creek contends the funding records go to motive.
The development authority is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and is not a government body, despite its name. Its most recent federal tax filing attributes its revenue to “other” sources, according to Ivy Creek’s filing.
Circuit Judge Amanda Baxley entered a temporary restraining order in August halting the request for proposals after finding Ivy Creek had shown a reasonable likelihood of success. That order remains in effect. A hearing is set for November 19.
The Healthcare Authority has said it acted in good faith and complied with its lease with Ivy Creek.
Grayson Everett is the editor in Chief of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on X @Grayson270.
