Category: Englewood

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Ridgewood Sues Valley Hospital to Strip it of its Tax Exempt Status

Valleywood theridgewoodblog.net 1
April 7,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, Finally the Village of Ridgewood has now joined over two dozen other municipalities, including Teaneck, Englewood, Wayne, Paterson, Pequannock and North Bergen challenging the tax exempt status of their local hospital .

According to the Bergen Record ,”Valley’s 15 1/2-acre main campus would owe about $4.5 million in taxes if it were fully assessed, according to Michael Barker, the village tax assessor.”

Since a landmark ruling in 2015 stripped Morristown Medical Center of its property-tax exemption. Many towns in New Jersey have begun looking into stripping local non profit hospitals of their tax exempt status and for Ridgewood its about time !

Lets face it for many years Valley hospital have enjoyed the services that the Village of Ridgewood has provide to them. For example police and fire response to alarms, thefts investigation altercation.

Many readers do know that when other towns bring someone to the hospital they do not stay with the patient. If the patient becomes combative or unruly the Ridgewood police have to respond and remain until the situation is resolved.

Although not well publicized, theft from patients, Doctors and Valley Hospital do occur with some frequency. These incidents are investigated by the Ridgewood Police and are added to the reported crime statistics of Ridgewood.
The fact that Valley Hospital feels that they need to” Renew” or expand indicates that the response of the police and fire will only increase. If indeed Valley Hospital feels that they are part of the community then why not pay their fair share. Why would the Village of Ridgewood have to sue them for taxes .
It is time that all parties should sit down and settle this as a real community partners.  The Village and the hospital would gain more credibility if this was done in transparent and fair way. Maybe it is time to put the past aside and make Valley a real partner in the community.
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Reader says We have something unique here and we have to be careful not to destroy it

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The full page ad from the Garage Cabal was an insult. It had Roberta’s exasperated catch phrase “enough is enough”. Well, I am fed up to, but I am fed up with our local government. Look at the list of signers in the ad. I recognize many of the names of business owners and residents who make their living working for these businesses (architect, PR guy). We also have some Financial Advisory Committee and Historic Preservation members. And then there are the hangers-on Don, Tim and Rurick. They did not make the list alphabetical because you would be able to see that entire families signed the petition just to make it look like a ground swell of supporters.

We are on the cusp of overdevelopment and everyone is grabbing for what they can get. The businesses care only about themselves. If business was not profitable they would have moved on to another town. They stay because they make a buck – good for them. I did not move to Ridgewood 27 years ago for the restaurants and banking opportunities. I moved because I liked the community as a whole.

Build the right-sized garage in downtown Ridgewood and limit high density housing. Thankfully we will soon have a new council and I hope that they can slow things down. I am not against change. Planned development can be a good thing. We are a community first, not a shopping center.

Look carefully at those running for a seat on the council. Two are FAC members (we need a separate thread just about this group – what exactly is their function?) who supported the garage in its original form. A third person seems to have nothing to do with the garage/development issue (The Manchurian Candidate). He is bff with Vaggianos and would like to help out his friend on the development side.

That leaves us with three other candidates. They have posted things on this site and social media. They are explaining their positions. I am listening carefully. We don’t want Englewood and Montclair as our models for a downtown. We have something unique here and we have to be careful not to destroy it.

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Ridgewood Places 81st in List of Best Towns to Raise a Family

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March 28,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood bloh
Ridgewood NJ , NJ Family magazine compiled a list of New Jersey’s Best Towns for Families . to come up with our ranking, they looked at the entire state of more than 500 towns and measured each municipality against a host of important factors, including school district quality, crime rates, affordability, commute times, percentage of families who live there, access to hospitals and general lifestyle factors.

Ridgewood’s (81) neighbor Oradell was named the number one place to raise a family in New Jersey and Hoboken which seems to be the model of our current council majority’s vision for Ridgewood’s future came in dead last at 508. Other towns that Ridgewood seems to be looking to for guidance Englewood came in 483, and Hackensack 422.

Along with Oradell other Bergen towns ;River Edge (13), Harrington Park (15),Closter (17), Old Tappan (18) , Upper Saddle River (29), and Glen Rock (30) all did quite well.

The Top 10 in the Ranking
1Oradell Bergen 7,997
2Montgomery Somerset 22,078
3Bethlehem Hunterdon 3,957
4Boonton Morris 4,311
5Fredon Sussex 3,392
6Pennington Mercer 2,591
7Mendham Morris 5,004
8MilltownMiddlesex6,916
9Mendham Twp.Morris 5,851
10Essex FellsEssex 2,125

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Now Englewood Steps Up with Teaneck to challenge their local hospitals’ exemption from property taxes

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BY MARY DIDUCH AND LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD

Both Teaneck and Englewood are challenging the tax-exempt status of their local hospitals, joining a growing list of municipalities who want non-profit hospitals to pay property taxes.

The councils of the two municipalities voted to file tax appeals against Englewood Hospital and Medical Center and Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck. Of 62 non-profit hospitals in the state, 17 others now face similar lawsuits.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/englewood-teaneck-to-challenge-their-local-hospitals-exemption-from-property-taxes-1.1532070

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Is Valley Hospital of Ridgewood Using the so called ‘Pac-Man Defense “to fend off Hostile bids?

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March 21,2016

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood Nj, Sources speculate that Valley’s Hospitals recent buying binge of property in or around the Ridgewood area is nothing more than creating what was often called by investment bankers the 1980’s as the “Pac-Man Defense “.

What is the ‘Pac-Man Defense’ ;The Pac-Man defense is a defensive tactic used by a targeted firm in a hostile takeover situation. In a Pac-Man defense, the target firm turns around and tries to acquire the other company that has made the hostile takeover attempt. This term has been accredited to Bruce Wasserstein, chairman of Wasserstein & Co.Read more: Pac-Man Defense Definition | Investopedia https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pac-man-defense.asp#ixzz43TAEGdAC

As The Valley Hospital has struggled for years to expand its campus in Ridgewood, it has been quietly buying real estate in Bergen County, assembling a portfolio that includes a string of properties on North Maple Avenue in Ridgewood and the building that houses the New Jersey Children’s Museum in Paramus.

Over the past two years, the hospital, in some cases through holding companies, has spent at least $54 million to acquire roughly a half-dozen sites in the village and neighboring Paramus as potential future locations for doctors’ offices, along with outpatient and other services that would be moved from its main campus. Some of these newly acquired properties are already operating as off-site hospital facilities.

But the hospital’s plans for some of its other new properties remain unclear, and Valley’s real estate shopping doesn’t appear to be over. Recently, it has been in talks to purchase buildings that the global parcel deliverer UPS will be vacating on Winters Avenue in Paramus, as reported by The Record. If that deal closes, it would add another property to a medical-services cluster that the hospital has been creating in Paramus, near the Fashion Center mall.

Valley’s push to expand comes on the heels of a bitter, losing battle in which it joined with Englewood Hospital and Medical Center to keep Hackensack University Medical Center from opening the former Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood. Now, Valley, Englewood and Hackensack are fiercely competing for the aging and affluent Bergen County population, offering hotel-like amenities combined with top-notch expertise and technology in a rapidly changing health care terrain influenced by Obamacare.

The Valley Hospital, which has not commented on the UPS negotiations beyond saying it has not purchased the property, describes its recent real estate buys as “strategic property acquisitions to ensure its ability to develop outpatient and ambulatory programs and services needed by the community.”

Megan Fraser, the hospital’s vice president for communications and marketing, said in an email that the hospital will share its plans for properties it has acquired “as they are finalized.” She said plans may include a health and wellness center and new facilities for Valley Medical Group, a group of family and urgent-care centers with seven sites in North Jersey.

Among properties already being used by the hospital is Parkview Plaza, a three-story office building at 1200 E. Ridgewood Ave. — near the hospital’s main campus — where it is expanding its cardiac center. The building was purchased last November for $28 million

In 2012, the hospital paid $4.8 million for a building at 970 Linwood Ave. in Paramus that in one section currently houses a regional blood center that will be moving out in March. Valley has established a research program there, in what is now the Bolger Medical Arts Building.

Moving outpatient services off campus to reduce traffic to and from the hospital was among the promises Valley made to village residents during contentious expansion hearings that date back to 2002. Valley has been trying nearly to double the square footage on its main campus, nestled on North Van Dien Avenue in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Its first proposal was rejected by the Ridgewood Village Council and a slightly scaled-back project totaling 995,000 square feet has been before the Village Planning Board almost a year. https://www.northjersey.com/news/valley-hospital-buying-up-string-of-properties-near-its-ridgewood-site-1.671045

Valley is looking to bulk up on assents making any unsolicited take over bid of the hospital by local competitors too expensive.

Rumors have been floated in the past of a imminent take over attempt by Hackensack University Medical Center but so far have never materialized.

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Is that ATM safe to use? Maybe not…

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By Ted Sherman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

ENGLEWOOD—The bank robbery occurred at the Citibank branch in a quiet North Jersey suburb.There were no alarms, no guns, no menacing notes and no threats of violence. More than $52,000 was taken and the bank in Englewood didn’t even know it had been robbed until long after the cash went out the door.

That same day in December 2012, just a week before Christmas, the same guys hit another Citibank in Florham Park. And over the next three weeks they would target additional branches of the bank in New Jersey and New York—walking away with more than $1 million in cash taken from Citibank ATM machines through hundreds of counterfeit bankcards encoded with personal information stolen from unsuspecting customers.

https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2016/03/is_that_atm_safe_to_use_watch_a_team_rig_a_cash_ma.html?ath=9c46bfc08d76232bb5a5e00eeaf0bfa2#cmpid=nsltr_strybutton

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Another Friday marked by blitz of ‘robo-call’ bomb threats at North Jersey schools

Waldwick Middle School-High School on Lock Down
file photo by Boyd Loving
Another Friday marked by blitz of ‘robo-call’ bomb threats at North Jersey schools

BY STEFANIE DAZIO AND ABBOTT KOLOFF
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD

In what has become a frustrating routine for law enforcement and school officials, thousands of students across North Jersey had their school day disrupted Friday when a series of bomb threats were phoned into at least 15 North Jersey schools, including 10 in Bergen County.

This was the second consecutive Friday that multiple schools were targeted by calls characterized by a robotic-sounding voice, and at least the third time since January, according to authorities. All of the schools were determined to be safe on Friday, as they were in the other incidents, after being inspected by law enforcement.

The Bergen County Sheriff’s Office bomb squad unit received 10 calls for help from local police over a period of about 30 minutes on Friday, starting at 11 a.m., authorities said. Officials confirmed threats across the region, in Ramsey, Mahwah, Cliffside Park, Waldwick, Teaneck, Fort Lee, Englewood, Hackensack, Oradell, Paramus, Paterson, Haledon, Little Falls, Nutley and Kearny. Most of the calls came in about 11 a.m. By 1:30 p.m., officials said, there was no longer a threat.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/bomb-threats-disrupt-school-day-in-several-north-jersey-towns-1.1522734

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New era begins at Palisades Medical Center as part of Hackensack’s network

HUMC_theridgewoodblog

BY LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

Signs with a new name for Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen went up on the waterfront campus Saturday after a judge late Friday approved Hackensack University Health Network’s acquisition of the Hudson County hospital.

HackensackUMC Palisades, as it will now be known, will become a fully owned part of the system that includes the flagship Hackensack University Medical Center, two jointly owned hospitals in Westwood and Montclair, and the affiliated Englewood Hospital Medical Center, when the deal is officially signed on Tuesday.

With its million-dollar views of the Manhattan skyline and access to the growing population of young professionals and affluent retirees along the Hudson River “Gold Coast,” Palisades gives Hackensack a prime opportunity to grow in Hudson County and southern Bergen County. Hackensack also acquires its first nursing home, the 245-bed Harborage, located next door on River Road and owned by Palisades.

The sale also marks a reduction in the number of independent community hospitals, as the consolidation of health-care facilities into larger systems continues in New Jersey and the rest of the country. When the Hackensack health network completes its planned merger with the Jersey Shore’s Meridian Health system, expected later this year, it will encompass 11 hospitals and become the largest health system in the state.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/judge-oks-hackensack-univer-health-s-acquisition-of-palisades-medical-center-1.1519148

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The Ridgewood Board of Education and the Ridgewood Police conduct school security checks after 9 school districts throughout Bergen and Passaic Counties received threats

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file photo by Boyd Loving
January 20th 2016

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ , Ridgewood Police and the Ridgewood Board of Ed  took proactive measures Tuesday after Police in nine North Jersey towns received bomb threats on Monday evening and on Tuesday morning, disrupting the school day for thousands of local students . Schools in Bergenfield, Clifton, Englewood, Fair Lawn, Garfield, Hackensack, Leonia, Teaneck, and Tenafly received the threats. Some school systems instituted lockdowns while others evacuated. While threats turned out to be a false alarm Ridgewood  Police and BOE rightfully took no chances .

We have received several inquiries today concerning threats to area schools today. Approximately 9 schools throughout Bergen and Passaic Counties received threats and have taken appropriate measures to address their specific needs. Although our schools have not received any threats, the Ridgewood Board of Education and the Ridgewood Police upon hearing of the regional issues, took proactive measures, conducting school security checks of all schools. This proactive approach is part of our ongoing efforts with Dr. Fishbein and the Board of Education towards enhancing the safety of our schools and community.

Chief John M. Ward

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Threats made against at least 9 school districts in North Jersey

Ridgewood_Police_theridgewoodblog

file photo by Boyd Loving

By Myles Ma | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on January 19, 2016 at 10:10 AM, updated January 19, 2016 at 10:47 AM

Multiple Bergen and Passaic county schools received bomb threats, Jan. 19, 2016. (File Photo)

High schools in at least nine school districts in Bergen County and Passaic County received threats Tuesday morning.

Schools in Leonia, Tenafly, Teaneck, Garfield, Fair Lawn, Hackensack, Englewood  and Bergenfield received threats, Anthony Cureton, a spokesman for Bergen County Sheriff Michael Saudino, said.

Police are investigating whether the threats are related, Cureton said. It’s also possible all the calls were automated, he said.

Fair Lawn Police Sgt. Brian Metzler said Fair Lawn High School received a threat over the phone at about 9 a.m. All the students have been moved to Memorial Middle School.

https://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2016/01/several_bergen_passaic_county_school_receive_bomb.html

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Valley Hospital in Ridgewood Joins 60 non-profit hospitals agreeing to PILOT program

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In landmark shift, hospitals agree to fees in lieu of property taxes

JANUARY 3, 2016, 10:59 PM    LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, JANUARY 3, 2016, 11:00 PM
BY LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

For more than a century, New Jersey’s non-profit hospitals have been exempt from paying property taxes, despite relying on their communities to maintain local roads and provide police and fire protection. Now the state’s largest hospital association says its members are willing to make payments to towns they reside in — but many municipalities want more.

In a historic change, the New Jersey Hospital Association recently declared its support for a proposal in the Legislature to require non-profit hospitals to make “community service contributions” to municipalities. The move came after a tax court decision this summer that Morristown Medical Center was not entitled to its property-tax exemption because its operations were little different from those of a for-profit company. That hospital has since agreed to pay $15.5 million over 10 years.

Concerned that Judge Vito Bianco’s decision would lead to tax battles involving many other hospitals, the hospital association endorsed a proposal by state Senate President Stephen Sweeney. The measure would assess non-profit hospitals a fixed daily contribution — not a tax — of $2.50 per bed, to be used for public safety expenses or to reduce property taxes.

The association estimated that the payments from all of the state’s s would total $21 million to $25 million, including about $2.7 million annually from the six non-profits in Bergen and Passaic counties, if the measure is enacted as written. They are Hackensack University Medical Center; The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood; St. Joseph’s Healthcare System’s two hospitals in Paterson and Wayne; Englewood Hospital and Medical Center and Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck. Hospitals owned by for-profit companies — HackensackUMC at Pascack Valley in Westwood and St. Mary’s General Hospital in Passaic — already pay property taxes.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/in-landmark-shift-hospitals-agree-to-fees-in-lieu-of-property-taxes-1.1484621

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RHS Robotics Team Takes First Place

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December 30,2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The RHS Robotics’ team competed in the FIRST Technology Challenge at Englewood as part of the FIRST Robotics league. The RHS team came in first place in their competition in conjunction with their alliance team. Aside from building a robot meant to complete a set of tasks in the fastest time, the RHS team was also honored for their professionalism and sense of community by receiving the Connect Award. The group had to submit an engineering notebook along with goals for sustaining the program and recruiting new students to the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. They also had to engage with the engineering community at large.

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Holy Name Medical Center, Valley Hospital sue to block ads for new tiered Horizon insurance plan

valley_hospital_theridgewoodblog

DECEMBER 10, 2015, 3:15 PM    LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2015, 3:20 PM
BY LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck and The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood opened a new front in the widening fight against the state’s largest insurer Thursday, with a lawsuit demanding that Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey halt further advertising of a new, tiered health plan because — by leaving their hospitals out of the preferred tier — it makes them look inferior.

Horizon breached its contract with the hospitals when it announced the new Omnia health plans in September, the lawsuit filed in state Superior Court in Hackensack by the two hospitals and five others said. The insurer was obligated to give the hospitals an opportunity to negotiate participation in the new plans, the suit said.

The Omnia plans, now being advertised widely, group hospitals into two tiers, and will allow patients to pay lower deductibles and co-insurance when they seek care from a preferred, or Tier 1, hospital. The plans are being sold to individuals, small businesses, state government employees and people who buy insurance through the federal Affordable Care Act for coverage starting Jan. 1. Premiums are 12 to 15 percent lower than for other Horizon plans.

“They’re using marketing that is misleading,” said Michael Furey, an attorney with Day Pitney who represents the seven hospital systems suing Horizon, saying that this damages the reputation of his clients. They’re “making the consumer think that somehow the Tier 1 hospitals are superior and the Tier 2 hospitals are inferior,” he said.

Horizon is the largest provider of health insurance in New Jersey, with more than 50 percent of the commercial market. In total, including Medicare, Medicaid, state and federal employee coverage, it provides insurance to 3.8 million people in the state.

In Bergen and Passaic counties, the Tier 1 network includes St. Joseph’s Healthcare System, with hospitals in Wayne and Paterson, and Hackensack University Medical Center and its affiliated hospitals — HackensackUMC at Pascack Valley in Westwood and Englewood Hospital and Medical Center.

Holy Name, Valley, and St. Mary’s General Hospital in Passaic are in Tier 2.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/holy-name-medical-center-valley-hospital-sue-to-block-ads-for-new-tiered-horizon-insurance-plan-1.1471869

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Fight over non-profit hospitals’ tax exemption looming

valley_hospital_theridgewoodblog

DECEMBER 5, 2015 LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2015, 1:21 AM
BY LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

New Jersey’s non-profit hospitals may not pay property taxes, but they generate so many jobs, both directly and indirectly, that their economic activity contributes more than $1.4 billion to local and state tax revenues, a report commissioned by the state hospital association said Friday.

The industry is bracing for legislative action that might threaten the current exemption from property taxes in the wake of a precedent-setting Tax Court decision earlier this year involving Morristown Medical Center. State Senate leaders have said they plan to introduce legislation this month to clarify the standards for maintaining a property-tax exemption, to better reflect hospitals’ evolution into complex corporate enterprises since the tax code was written in 1913.

In Bergen and Passaic counties, the value of hospitals’ tax exempt properties is conservatively estimated at more than $700 million.

The report by EY (formerly Ernst & Young), commissioned by the New Jersey Hospital Association, details the economic and community benefits that non-profit hospitals provide. The 63 non-profit hospitals statewide employed 140,000 people, who received $8.3 billion in salaries and paid $674 million in state and local taxes in 2013, the report said. Hospital activities led indirectly to an additional 114,000 jobs statewide, and generated $777 million in additional taxes.

In North Jersey, those hospitals include Hackensack University Medical Center, Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood and St. Joseph’s Healthcare System in Passaic County.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/nj-state-news/property-tax-fight-looming-1.1468111

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Mass Transit : Back to the Future ,old plans are new again

menednez_ridgewood trainstation_theridgewoodblog

file photo by Boyd Loving

A train delay for the ages; increasing service in Bergen County among several stalled plans

NOVEMBER 29, 2015    LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2015, 12:27 AM
BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

In May 1928, a group of forward thinkers in New York City drew a map of North Jersey that envisioned passenger trains running from Englewood to Jersey City on an existing set of railroad tracks, part of a network they confidently named the “Ultimate Suburban Rapid Transit Plan.”

At 1 p.m. on a Thursday this month, 86 years later, three powerful New Jersey senators gathered in a conference room overlooking the same tracks to demand a return of passenger trains to the line.

“This is a project that should have happened years ago,” state Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Wood-Ridge, said of the project, known as the “Northern Branch.”

Bringing more rail service to Bergen County may be North Jersey’s most stubborn transportation dream. Even now, depending on how one counts, there are between six and 11 efforts to return passenger service to historic train lines. And although passenger trains, bus lines and highways have spread across the region in the post-World War II era, people here have pushed, planned, schemed and begged for even more commuter rail, either to reduce traffic congestion or to connect places that are difficult to reach by mass transit. And the problem grows more acute the closer one gets to New York City. For densely populated towns in eastern Bergen County, like Englewood, Fort Lee and Tenafly, trains simply are not an option, as state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, often points out.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/a-train-delay-for-the-ages-increasing-service-in-bergen-county-among-several-stalled-plans-1.1464237