>Valley’s latest full-page (s)ad
Occupying the entire back page of the first section of the September 16 issue of the Ridgewood News (and maybe other publications? don’t know) is an ad from Valley Hospital, stating that it was paid for by the group of people co-opted by Valley Hospital and listing “625 registered supporters–and counting!” who favor the Valley Occupation.
With each family member listed separately, including matching lists of non-Smith, non-Jones surnames totaling up to six per name, the total may be something of an exaggeration; but let’s say every individual resident matters and every spouse or child truly and deeply agrees with the prevailing spouse or parent regarding Valley’s hopes and dreams. Among signers listing their degrees, 21 are MDs, three are dentists, one is a podiatrist, and one is a psychologist. (This is not counting their listed family members.) Fine; it’s not surprising that health care professionals want the hospital to expand.
Here’s the trouble with such lists and expensive ads: this issue is never going to referendum. The number of residents who want things to go one way or the other is not relevant. Those in charge must do hard research, reread their notes, and base their decisions on their findings and their own best judgment. Feeding that judgment will be facts, if they can be discerned in such an overwrought environment, and the leaders’ vision of how changes such as those proposed by Valley might affect the immediate and distant face and future of the Village.
If one Friday we should open our copies of the paper to find that the entire issue had been bought by Valley and was bursting with a list of 24,000 residents of the Village, ages one day to 110 years, it should have no effect on what the right decision regarding the proposed expansion would be. Even if every resident of the town wanted Valley’s petition to succeed or fail, we are only the residents of today. We are not talking, say, about how to celebrate next July 4, whose effects would end after the cleanup on July 5, and in which current residents’ opinions would be of interest. We are talking about how permitting the erection of a gigantic edifice in a residential neighborhood surrounded by schools and with endless traffic would affect the residents of tomorrow and beyond, from Phase One to Phase 101 or however many Phases were required to get the Taj Mahal in gear.
We vote people into positions of authority and power because we trust them to do the right and best thing, not the popular thing–not that we really know precisely to how the town is split on this issue. But it doesn’t matter. Even the popular thing, and even when its supporters are worthy people or many people or medical people, may be the wrong thing for the Village at large.
Most heartbreaking is the absurd waste of funds–and it will probably get worse as the hearings proceed–on publicity and marketing, surveys, attorneys’ fees, and other attempts to sell us the hospital’s requests. Those millions ought to have gone to patient care, or indigent care, or reasonable hospital upgrades–or taxes.
