HOBOKEN – Mayor Dawn Zimmer has responded to a public interest group’s request that the city hold a public hearing on the sale of the city’s hospital to a private entity.
In a letter to New Jersey Appleseed dated March 4, Zimmer said she believes “any public hearings held by an entity other than the Hospital Authority would undermine rather than advance the objective of transparency.”
Currently, the Hoboken Municipal Hospital Authority is in exclusive negotiations for the sale of the Hoboken University Medical Center with HUMC Holdco, LLC, a group that also has ownership with Bayonne Medical Center. After a bidding period which saw eight parties step forward, the Authority began a 60-day, exclusive negotiation period with HUMC Holdco on Jan. 4. However, requests by council members to see the other bids have been denied, as the Authority is an autonomous entity. The council members believe they should be able to view the bids because the city guaranteed a $52 million bond by voting in 2007 to rescue and take ownership of the hospital.
“Statutory authority with regard to hospital matters resides with the Hospital Authority, not with the mayor or the Hoboken City Council,” Zimmer wrote in a letter to Appleseed’s Executive Director, Renee Steinhagen. Zimmer is a voting member on the Hospital Authority.
“It is critical for both the survival of our hospital as an acute care facility and the fiscal well being of our city that the process be insulated from the inappropriate political pressures that inevitably arise when an election is imminent,” Zimmer said in the letter. Six council seats are up for election in May. Zimmer said in her letter that the current framework which excludes the council was “designed to prevent the inappropriate infusion of politics into Hospital affairs.”
On Wednesday, the City Council established a subcommittee to try and answer questions the council may have about the potential hospital sale.
In the Appleseed letter, Steinhagen said she was concerned with rumors about potential benefits for members of the Authority if they select HUMC Holdco.
“With respect to the ‘rumors’ that you refer to in your letter, I am unaware of any factual basis whatsoever for any of those claims,” Zimmer wrote, “which have largely been circulated anonymously on internet blogs. I ask that you provide any factual information that you may have to the Hospital Authority as soon as possible.” — Ray Smith
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