>Audrey Meyers : Social darling or community pariah?
Audrey Meyers has had a bad week. First the State Health Planning Board gave the OK to the reopening of Pascack Valley then the Ridgewood Village Council strongly rejected her management team’s bid to massively expand Valley Hospital. To her followers, Meyers seems to have moved from social darling to a pariah in the community. What happened and why?
If you have lived in Ridgewood for more than 5 years you will remember the first Valley Renewal fliers that began appearing in mailboxes in late 2006. The early renewal propaganda all featured large images of Meyers with her serene expression and steady gaze looking out of the page from beneath her straight black fringe. I guess the public relations company decided that they could appeal to the perceived community popularity of Meyers to help sell the Renewal. But even at the beginning of the campaign was Meyers really a popular community figure in Ridgewood? From her vantage point on Highland Ave and her salary of over $1.3 million it was hard to see her as person of the people. Ever since Meyers took the job as CEO at Valley she has constantly surrounded herself with a small circle of her executive team. Stories have emerged from within Valley of people who expressed views counter to Meyers being fired. Yet Valley PR has repeatedly claimed that Audrey has the ear of the Ridgewood community from which the Renewal enjoys full support. After two council elections for Village council where candidates who did not publically support the renewal were elected, the truth about broad community support has proved to be false.
So who are the Audrey supporters? This group is really the Hospital Ancillary. At its heart the Hospital Ancillary is really a club that holds social events in support of the hospital. IRS documents reveal that the ancillary contributes just over 2 million dollars in donations per year. With the total hospital revenue near one billion dollars the financial contribution from the Auxiliary is in reality small. However, in the community Ridgewood, the Auxiliary is really THE social club in town, especially amongst the ladies who lunch. It is a club where the very comfortably well-off can rub shoulders with the very wealthy and feel like they have made it. At least twice a month members of the auxiliary can be seen gracing the social pages of the Ridgewood News or in photos in the health section. Gala balls, dinners and fashion shows are all opportunities to display a member’s taste in fine clothes, food and wine. Like the socialites buzzing around Miss Hilly in THE HELP’s depiction of Jackson Mississippi, Ridgewood’s social scene is also clearly divided between the ancillary crowd and everyone else. In this environment it would be easy for Meyers to believe that she has overwhelming support. Surrounded by employees are compelled to follow the boss and the members of the ancillary fawning over her to get a place in the social order it is easy to see why she still believes she is on top in public opinion. This is because all she hears is support as no one who she surrounds herself with dares to tell her anything different.
