Lawrence Memorial Hospital’s board of trustees chose an architect firm Wednesday to design its fourth-floor renovation, but not before fireworks erupted among some of the trustees.

Board chair Allen Belot accused another trustee, Gina Pacumbaba-Watson, of leaking information about the tentative finalists for the project early last month. Belot, a Lawrence architect, claimed the leak caused friends of his to receive “threats” because of his involvement with one of the finalist firms, Kansas City, Mo.-based ACI Boland Architects. Belot ultimately withdrew from ACI Boland’s project team, while another firm, Hoefer Wysocki Architects of Leawood, was selected by the board Wednesday.

“My concern is that there was a release of information to try to influence the process. … It’s a matter of trust, and trust is lacking on this board right now,” Belot said. “With that in mind, I would never do anything to hurt this hospital. I withdrew from the team because of the misinformation that was being passed out, and it was touching my friends and it was getting close to touching our hospital and touching our CEO. I couldn’t let that happen.”

Pacumbaba-Watson, who chairs the committee that made recommendations on the firms, said she was “blindsided” by Belot’s accusations, which she denied. However, she noted that Belot’s involvement with the project made the facilities committee’s job more difficult, as it caused hospital administrators to recuse themselves from the committee. Ultimately, the best firm was chosen, she added.

LMH facilities director Todd Koch said Wednesday that Hoefer Wysocki was the top choice because its fee was the lowest, it has experience with interiors and health care is its primary market. All the board members besides Belot, who abstained from voting, agreed. The firm will design the new fourth floor at LMH, which houses the hospital’s acute rehab and skilled nursing units. The project is expected to begin construction in mid-2015 and take about a year to complete. The design work is estimated to account for about $175,000 of the $3.5 million project.

Belot, who has been on the board for nine years, said he never previously got involved with architecture projects at the hospital because he thought it was a conflict of interest, but did this time after the hospital’s attorney advised him that it wouldn’t be a violation of hospital policy.

Some trustees said they had reservations about Belot’s involvement that they should have addressed with him personally.

“Right or wrong, perception vs. reality, your being a part of one of those teams created some tension among board members and I also believe it created tension among staff,” said trustee John Bullock. “If I had foreseen this, I would have been more vocal in June (when the board gave its blessing to Belot’s involvement) … But I think that focusing so exclusively on Gina as the entire cause of this is unfair.”

“I think we need to be loyal to each other,” said trustee Jane Blocher. “I think we fell short as a board with not talking to you directly about concerns that we had.”

Belot recommended that the hospital revise its conflict-of-interest policy so board members would not be allowed to do business with LMH under any circumstances. Some other trustees suggested looking at best practices used by other hospitals and said they would come up with a proposal for revisions at a future meeting.

In other news from Wednesday’s LMH board meeting, the trustees awarded bonuses to non-contracted hospital employees because of LMH’s recent strong financial performance. The bonus was $250 for each full-time employee, and $125 for each part-time employee.