President of Concerned Residents of Ridgewood opponents of Valley Hospital expansion makes presentation
Wednesday October 30, 2013, 8:49 AM
BY BARBARA WILLIAMS
STAFF WRITER
The Record
Residents who oppose The Valley Hospital’s plan to nearly double in size erupted in a standing ovation Tuesday night when the president of their group was finally given the chance to voice their concerns about the expansion to the Planning Board.
“We are seven years into this and we are discussing a proposal that increases above grade “bulk” from around 400,000 square feet to 1 million square feet,” said Pete McKenna. “This applicant is running a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week business operation in the middle of a residential neighborhood. It is incompatible with its surroundings and it impacts the quality of life every day.”
Opponents had been increasingly frustrated that they had not had a chance to speak in three previous board meetings, which were either cut short or delayed with objections and questions by Valley’s attorney.
On Tuesday night McKenna and two other members of Concerned Residents of Ridgewood, Melinda Wagner and Marc Harris, told the Planning Board it should not be deciding whether the traffic plan is sufficient or if the construction schedule can be set to work around the hours of the school next to the hospital. Rather, they said, the board should be considering whether the hospital should nearly double in size on its 15-acre site in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
“The Planning Board never felt it appropriate to start by challenging the premise of expansion,” Harris said. “It started at the applicants’ conclusion….and then we began a decade-long journey of traffic, construction, impact and other endless statistical data dumps.”
It was finally nice to hear some things from a non Valley perspective. It was disappointing that CRR apparently had to agree to not to bring Mr Steck back for further testimony to shut the Drill bit up. If ms. Goldfisher gets up one more time during testimony someone should trip her. Mr. Ruthauser is also as rude as you can get. He sits there during the meeting shuffling plans right over his microphone and then playing with some device for the remainder of the time. How much does he get to be so rude?
Some people have a need to be recognized and she certainly fits that bill.
As for Mr.Ruthauser, I hope he was checking something relative to what Ms. Brogan said, but his timing was certainly on the poor side.