Two years ago, Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke answered talk about closing the long-troubled Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center with an emphatic declaration: “That hospital will be closed over my dead body,” the Los Angeles Times reports

But today, as the hospital faces state action to revoke its license and supervisors weigh whether to shutter the facility themselves, Burke is alive yet conspicuously silent.

Over the last week, the supervisor has failed to respond to questions from reporters and has been absent from key moments in the unfurling drama surrounding the hospital. She has left the task of addressing the public largely to her board colleagues, some of whom she has fiercely disagreed with in the past.

The silence has created a stir among aides to other supervisors and alienated some of her constituents, who said they expected Burke to unveil a rescue plan or at least provide a voice in defense of the hospital. Some blame her for the hospital’s current crisis.

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