Tag: Ridgewood schools

>The Whitestone Associates report is critical as to why the scale of the expansion of the hospital should not go ahead 

The Whitestone Associates report is critical as to why the scale of the expansion of the hospital should not go ahead – 12 trucks an hour for 8 hours a day and the foundations of local homes been damaged, these are just some of the real issues that the village as a whole will face. Together with the noise, the increased level of traffic and the general dangers posed by such an undertaking, the Village needs to look carefully as to why this project is something that we must not undertake. A legal remedy that the hospital will seek, should its plans be quashed, will amount to nothing based on the findings of this report.

We must be mindful that the Village has a duty to care for its tax-paying citizens and most importantly, for the children that will be caught in the crosshairs of this massive project – regardless of what side of town they live on and regardless of their numbers. Endangering the welfare or life of just one child is something that can not be tolerated.

Another important factor that needs to be touched on is the companies that will be potentially hired by Valley for this supposedly massive project – will the Village get an opportunity to review the track records of these companies as those records relate to health and safety history, employment history (most construction companies that undertake these sized projects have in the past been found guilty of hiring illegal immigrants and paying them below average wages off their books). What recourse will the Village have against Valley and the companies should anything untoward happen?

It’s important to remember that the issue of the expansion plan comes with numerous sub-issues that all need to be addressed and I am of the opinion that that most of those sub-issues have not been addressed or even placed on the radar.

>Valley Expansion: You can have a better hospital without this plan. Valley’s entire history from its beginnings proves that

You can have a better hospital without this plan. Valley’s entire history from its beginnings proves that. There was never an expansion done anywhere near the size of the current proposal. Yet plenty of expansion and modernization was surely done over the years. Many more specialty areas were added over the years since Valley began,too.

Remember, Valley started as the entire hospital’s footprint being what’s now the doctor parking lot on Linwood. Phillips- now the oldest building– greatly expanded the hospital when it was built. Then Bergen followed, then Cheel.

Also bear in mind as to Ridgewood, the host community, our population really has not changed greatly in size throughout most of Valley’s existence.

What you probably can NOT have without this plan though is a big regional medical center that attracts patients and their doctors from all over.
That’s not a reasonable definition of “serving the community” to me, unless you define “community” as basically the entire tri-state area and perhaps beyond that.

This area has a lot of facilities to choose from.. and in fact many providers who practice at Valley offer their patients other choices for procedures than only Valley.

For one very specialized procedure, a local close friend was recently offered a choice of either Clara Maas or Valley. The specialist surgeon who performed the procedure has offices in both Ridgewood and the Clara Maas area.

The patient chose Valley, but the doctor also commented that Clara Maas was every bit as good as Valley in terms of services for the procedure needed, and that actually more such procedures are done there than at Valley, not just by that provider, but overall in NJ.

When Pascack was open, even more choices were available and many docs practicing at Valley were also listed as having privileges at Pascack.

If you do lookups of Valley physicians at the Valley site and then go look up that provider individually, you’ll find that many (and likely most) have privileges at multiple hospitals. Some doctors on the Valley site have a feature you can directly click for more info about their practice, too – and among those, you’ll also find most have multiple hospital affiliations — in fact quite a few continue to list “Pascack” as an affiliation.

So, just like many docs have multiple offices, they also have multiple affiliations with hospitals. Quite a few on the Valley directory also practice from Hackensack too.

Thus, with a plan that provided for some modernization but not the “regional med center” model, you could have the advantage of a “renewed” Valley while still having something sensible in terms of its fit with the site and within the Village as its host community.

It’s hard for me to understand how patients or overall care will suffer if the proposed plan is not built, when so many doctors who practice at Valley also practice elsewhere, and will likely continue to also practice at Valley.

If the current Valley is so “behind the times” as the “experts” seem to testify, why are so many of those same leading area doctors practicing there at all, given that so many of them have other area hospital privileges?

I’m all for them tearing down the old Phillips building and doing some modernizing.. but you don’t need this plan for that. Something more modest would clearly satisfy that need – just as Valley’s previous updates have been able to do.

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>Ten things to fix in Ridgewood (in no particular order):

1. Eliminate cross-walks…drivers don’t pay attention anayway so let’s end the charade.
2. Turn Graydon into a clear water pool.
3. Put lights somewhere on the west side….preferably at Willard.
4. Eliminate the Shade Tree Comm-n….having to replace my sidewalks every 8 years for stupid Oak trees planted by the town is insulting.
5. Have the Council vote on what “authors” can actually have book signings at Bookends.
6. Make Ridgewood and Franklin Avenues 1-way thoroughfares (in the CBD).
7. Move the BoE election to November.
8. Pave Grove Street so it doesn’t look like a highway in Bangalore.
9. Open up a Van Dykes on Pleasant Ave.
10. Have Policeman or an aux cop direct pedestrians when they come out of the train station…..

>Valley Renewal : Having these special meetings allows more citizens the opportunity to witness this phase of the process and offer input they were denied in the Planning Board phase

As far as the current Village Council meetings are concerned, Yes, experts did presentations to the Planning Board. And the Planning Board made it’s decision.

The next phase of the process is for the issue to come before the Village Council, who also will hear from experts and have a chance to question them before deciding whether or not to introduce an ordinance in support of the Planning Board’s decision. They have graciously responded to amount of public interest in this issue which is particularly important since the Planning Board did everything they could to disrespect and disregard the citizens of Ridgewood. Having these special meetings allows more citizens the opportunity to witness this phase of the process and offer input they were denied in the Planning Board phase.

The time the Village Council is spending on this is part of the process by which changes like this are decided. The meetings are a necessity either way. The fact that they have made them more easily accessible to the public is commendable.