A Hospital, A Decision, the Future – My name is Thomas Wanner, a taxpaying resident of Westwood, a business consultant by profession and the borough’s former Mayor. I’ve initiated a civil action against Westwood’s Mayor, Council and Planning Board over the passage of an ordinance amendment in conflict with the municipality’s Master Plan.
They changed a zone’s intent which had sought to ensure a hospital use continued within a specific area. It is now vulnerable to an alternate use interpretation. To be sure I’d rather be focused on my own work rather then filing a suit against my hometown. It is my concern for the town that compels the spending of personal funds to finance an effort in the hope of a reevaluation by the governing body toward its legislation.
Westwood in northern New Jersey lost its community hospital, Pascack Valley Hospital (PVH). The hospital filed for bankruptcy on September 24, 2007, closing its doors November 21, after 48 years of service to over 20 communities. The 20 acre site with its associated 425,000 square feet of buildings was purchased by Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC) and Touro University College of Medicine within a 50/50 joint venture limited liability corporation for $45 million.
HUMC/Touro LLC took over a site that was municipally zoned only for a hospital in accordance with the community’s Master Plan. A Master Plan, guided by State statute, originates within each municipality from a process of dialogue between a municipality’s Planning Board and its community.
The Master Plan sets a foundation for policies and legislation, acting as a guide in the long range planning of a community’s development. The purpose of the hospital zone here was to ensure that the tax free property remained directed toward the continuation of a hospital. A hospital with the associated community benefits of broad based quality medical care, volunteer opportunities and jobs.
In response to my filing a suit, and in an effort to explain the governing body’s action, the borough’s attorney, Mr. Russell Huntington, Esq., submitted to the judge a case management memorandum dated July 9, 2008. Mr. Huntington stated: “The Governing Body received an overwhelming mandate from its citizens and from the citizens and elected officials in the surrounding municipalities to do everything within its power to take such steps as might be necessary to reestablish critical health care facilities at this site. . . . The Amendments to the Zoning Ordinance were adopted to encourage ‘Hospital’ and/OR ‘Medical school’ uses.”
The governing body’s amendment, void of any Resolution providing reasoning, introduces an alternative use to the hospital zone’s principle use and simplifies what constitutes the definition of a hospital. It leaves open the potential, that in spite of the HUMC/Touro LLC verbal commitments for the site, a hospital could technically and legally not be part of the equation. It allows that if a hospital was to reopen and subsequently agendas change, it could re-close without recourse to the taxpaying public, leaving only a medical college on site. Considering no one ever fathomed PVH closing, who is to say what the future holds?
Some might suggest I’m complaining about a small detail. The ER is cited to open in October, the on hold ‘Certificate of Need’ will purportedly be applied for too but then there is that “what if” question. “What if” situations change? What has Westwood given for words? Will the projected student population raise pressure on housing requirements and increase apartment construction? What will the COAH requirements be for this site accommodation? What will be the new community infrastructure demands? Who will pay for them? The list goes on so why not have an ordinance that at the very least assures the residents a continued hospital presence?
This blog will chronicle the process that led up to my decision to initiate this civil action and provide access to supporting documentation. I could be wrong. Maybe the governing body, behind its closed session discussions, knows something the public doesn’t. I just feel IF each participant is in agreement with their commitment for a hospital then let the Ordinance reflect it.
This issue is important, not just to Westwood, but to the surrounding Pascack Valley region. The Westwood borough attorney cites the concerns of citizens and elected officials in the surrounding municipalities as a partial basis for the governing body’s decision. If you want a hospital on the site to be a surety and not just words, than I would implore those who read this blog and feel effected by the hospital’s loss, write letters to the local papers to remind local officials that m-e-d-i-c-a-l c-o-l-l-e-g-e does not spell hospital and that 1 ‘or’ 1 does not equal 2.
Follow up: As noted in the ‘Sunset of Hope’ post, I dropped my suit this past summer without prejudice. I had originally hoped that my actions would generate discussion within the governing body to reconsider their ordinance changes. I could have been more aggressive if I was just looking to be a pesky gadfly. They had discussed the ordinance at the planning board level―in closed session―in direct conflict with the Sunshine law. I didn’t note such in my cause of action.
This blog has focused on the hospital issue from various perspectives. It consistently tried to stress the need for the governing body to be actively engaged in bringing a hospital back to Westwood. While I believe fundamentally that less government is better, it doesn’t change the fact that some government is necessary to protect the rights of a free and equal society. Being rich or poor should not bring one entitlement―nor should it be an excuse to apply a barrier on fabricated rights, as was done by state Senator Loretta Weinberg, Assemblyman Gordon Johnson, and the hospitals opposing a reopened facility.
The federal government got involved in the tobacco industry to primarily change how it did business and protect the public’s health. Occasionally, it takes a legal action to form, change, or define a policy that clarifies an intent to make safe a public concern.
Health care access has many definitions and perspectives. The closing of Pascack Valley Hospital limited acute care access to many vulnerable, young and old, area residents. To question reopening a smaller facility based upon one hospital’s inability (Englewood Hospital) to manage efficiently in its own market location―is short sighted ignorance. To deny equal access in an effort to induce a patient monopoly and volume revenues―is unconscionable.
The Westwood governing body collectively failed to consider the ‘what-ifs’ in an organized plan of action. They chose instead a course of submission that offered accommodation and a sideline cheering section, which put the public’s fate in the hands of others. Do you think the tobacco industry counted the number of deaths caused by lung cancer or the cost to taxpayers before the government took action?
As of today (02-26-10) with 16 inches of snow on the ground, the hospital’s status is in limbo. What tomorrow will bring is anybody’s guess, as I doubt that either Hackensack University Medical Center or the Westwood governing body has any real clue, let alone a plan.
In closing, this blog will post a lot less often―occasionally on local issues that highlight its government’s wisdom―until such time that the hospital’s status is defined. An e-mail subscription widget was added to the sidebar for those local residents who are interested in being notified on any new postings. Thank you to the thousands who followed along these past 20 months.
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‘Letters to the Editor’ to the local papers noted below should not exceed 500 words.
Pascack Valley Community Life, 372 Kinderkamack Rd., Westwood, NJ 07675
E-mail Address: pvcommunitylife@northjersey.com
Pascack Press, PO Box 335, Westwood, NJ 07675
E-mail address: pascackpress@hotmail.com
