Jersey City Medical Center and health care company make $100.4M offer to buy Christ Hosp
Christ Hospital has received yet another purchase offer, this time from Jersey City Medical Center and Community Healthcare Assoc.
At present, the hospital is seeking state approval to sell to Prime Healthcare Services, a for-profit company in California that owns a chain of 14 hospitals in the Golden State. Prime Healthcare has offered $15.7 million, according to documents submitted to the Office of the New Jersey Attorney General.
But since that deal was first announced last summer, Christ has received a formal purchase offer from Hudson Holdco – the owner of Bayonne Medical Center and Hoboken University Medical Center – and interest from Jersey City Medical Center.
Jersey City Medical Center is now trying for a second bite at the apple. Last week the hospital, in partnership with Community Healthcare Associates, offered to buy Christ Hospital for $100.4 million.
“The proposal lays out four tenets: to continue operating Christ as a non-profit acute care community hospital for a period of not less than 30 years; to preserve and create jobs while maintaining the existing unions; to continue to build a positive working relationship with the medical staff; and to expand Christ’s role as a healthcare leader and educator in Jersey City, Hudson County and New Jersey,” said Jersey City Medical Center CEO Joseph Scott in a comment released last week.
While Christ’s Board of Directors has been negotiating a deal to sell the hospital to Prime Healthcare, concerns about Prime’s track record in California have led health advocates and officials in New Jersey to press Christ Hospital’s board to consider purchase bids from other potential buyers, including LibertyHealth System, which owns Jersey City Medical Center.
In December, Hudson Holdco offered $91.6 million to buy Christ, an offer that Christ’s Board of Directors rejected. Residents have angrily questioned why the hospital appears to be committed to the significantly lower purchase price offered by Prime.
When asked whether Christ would seriously consider the latest offer from Jersey City Medical Center and Community Healthcare Assoc., hospital spokesman Paul Hebert responded, “With regard to the proposal submitted by Jersey City Medical Center and CHA, we are in receipt of the proposal and still in the process of reviewing it. We have no further comment at this time.”
See related brief below.
JC neighborhood associations form board to monitor Christ Hosp. sale
Save Christ Hospital, a grassroots Jersey City effort that is trying to bring more transparency to the sale of the hospital, has formed a community oversight board to “represent ordinary citizens of Hudson County in the plans to sell this important community asset,” according to a release from the organization. The advisory board is comprised of people from 14 neighborhood associations and community groups, according to Jersey City activist Paul Bellan-Boyer.
If the sale to Christ Hospital is approved by the New Jersey Attorney General, state Dept. of Health and Senior Services, and the state Health Planning Board, four of Hudson County’s six hospitals will be under for-profit ownership. This, critics fear, will lead to the reduction or elimination of unprofitable medical services, such as pediatric and gynecological services.
“Clearly, the oversight board has no formal authority,” Bellan-Boyer told the Reporter. “But usually in a hospital sale process the state requires that the hospital establish a community oversight board. We just want to make sure that now, rather than at the end of the sale process. We have a focused community effort to oversee the sale and evaluate, from the community’s standpoint, what are the pluses and minuses of any proposed plan.”
The oversight board builds on a community meeting held last month that was co-hosted by Save Christ Hospital and New Jersey Citizen Action. That meeting attracted about 150 concerned residents.
The groups are calling for an “open, transparent review process with substantial and meaningful public participation”; a “community needs assessment to determine essential services that must be provided”; a “formal bid process that [the] state government, local government, and the public can see prior to any sale”; and that “any sale fully meet the [Community Health Care Assets Protection Act] standard of no negative impact on the public interest,” among other demands.
St. Aedan’s kicks off centennial celebrations
St. Aedan’s Parish will hold a centennial mass and reception on Sunday, Jan. 29 at 12:30 p.m.
Bishop Thomas Donato will lead the service along with priests who have served the parish in the past. Father Vincent Sullivan Sr. will give the homily.
This service and reception kick off a year of centennial celebrations the church, located at 800 Bergen Ave. will be hosting throughout 2012. For more information (201) 433-6800 or (201) 401-7243.
Judge dismisses developer’s lawsuit against Jersey City and Mariano Vega
A U.S. District Court judge has tossed out a lawsuit filed last fall by a developer who had alleged that former City Council President Mariano Vega conspired with various city agencies and other public officials to take his property without compensation.
When New York City-based developer Neil Sorrentino, who built the Washington Commons residential property at 311 Washington St., filed his lawsuit last September, the city’s corporation counsel called his allegations “baseless.”
U.S. District Court Judge Jose Linares has now dismissed Sorrentino’s suit, ruling that his allegations have been argued and dismissed in other courts.
In June 2004, Sorrentino received approval from the Jersey City Zoning Board to build Washington Commons, a mid-rise condo development in the Powerhouse district. The development was to include 68 market-rate condo units and parking.
According to city officials, Sorrentino requested permission to build more units in Washington Commons than city law allows. Sorrentino ultimately requested, and was granted, a density variance that allowed him to construct additional units in the building.
The city granted this variance on the condition that Sorrentino include seven modestly-priced live/work units that would be set aside for artists, in accordance with the city’s vision for the Powerhouse Arts District.
Construction on 311 Washington began in 2004, and soon after, Sorrrentino applied for a 20-year tax abatement for the development.
Sorrentino alleged that in early 2007 he was approached by an intermediary working with Vega and was told to attend a meeting at Jersey City’s Brownstone Diner. Sorrentino was allegedly told that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss a pending abatement application, according to the developer’s lawsuit.
At the time of this alleged meeting, Vega – in addition to being City Council president – also served as chairman of the Tax Abatement Committee.
Sorrentino alleged that when he showed up at the diner, Vega told him he had to turn the seven artists’ units over to the city for free – far less than what he thought he was owed.
The developer claims that Vega allegedly planned to set aside two of the artists units for family members of his and wanted to ensure that his relatives could live in these units at little or no cost.
Sorrentino claimed that when he refused to go along, Vega allegedly threatened him, stating that future city approvals for Washington Commons wouldn’t be granted.
The city filed a motion asking the court to dismiss Sorrentino’s lawsuit, a motion that was granted on Jan. 19.
In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Jose Linares wrote: “These same parties have litigated the instant set of facts in nine New Jersey Superior Court hearings, two appellate division decisions, and two New Jersey Supreme Court denials of certification. There is no question that this case is now far beyond the confines of this court’s jurisdiction.”
Sorrentino had raised his allegations in two previous lawsuits that were filed in Hudson County Superior Court. Those cases were dismissed because judges ruled that the developer waited too long to file a case and the statute of limitations had run out. One court also ruled that he had not adequately exhausted non-legal channels to resolve the matter.
Vega, one of the individuals arrested in a notorious 2009 FBI sting operation, is currently serving a 30-month sentence behind bars after pleading guilty to accepting a $20,000 bribe from government informant Solomon Dwek. Ironically, Linares is the judge who sentenced Vega in that case.
Charter school group starts online petition for better funding
The Jersey School Charter School Alliance, has launched an online petition to persuade the Jersey City Board of Education to support efforts to close a loophole that restricts charter schools from receiving the funding to which they are entitled.
By law, public charter schools are supposed to receive 90 percent of the per-student funding that traditional public schools receive. But because of a loophole in the law, charter schools in Jersey City receive only 50 percent of the funding of their peers. Charter school advocates argue that that this funding loophole actively works against charter schools and denies some Jersey City children their right to a quality public education.
An online petition started Jan. 23 by the Jersey School Charter School Alliance encourages charter school supporters to electronically sign the petition, which will then sent to members of the BOE and the New Jersey Department of Education.
The petition can be found at www.jcforward.com.