You pay taxes on the assessed value of the home. Forget about 1 or 2 familes. Our assessment is at 28%, which means it is time for another reval. When the last reval happened the city was on a calendar year, not a fiscal year. My taxes jumped from $3,000 to $16,000. It the city was on a fiscal it would have been $11,000. I have attended county meetings Jersey City is paying more proportionally due to the sales prices fuled by tax abated properties. Tax abated properties are not ratables. Ratables add to the value of the city and lessen the burden for all of us. Abatements are contracts in which the city keeps the money but the value of the sale is held against the homeowner. Property that is selling at market rate is used when the county strikes the budget. Our taxes goes up to make up for the low assessment (28%). On top of that we are losing state aid for the board of ed due to the wealth of the city. In the last two years we paid an addition $10.8 million to the board of ed which is more than a $2.00 increase. Additional information is on my web site www.speaknj.com

I just received a notice from the Jersey City Office of the Tax Assessor. It says please call the office of Tax Assessment to arrange for an appointment to have your property inspected.

What does this mean? Is this routine, or am I being reassessed?

My house was a legal three family, when NJ state DCA came to inspect a few months ago, I classified it as a two family, which is how it is being used. Could this have triggered a tax reassesment by Jersey City?

Robin.

Quote:

Sorry, I missed that line.

Quote:

Mostly I focus on "rescuing" books I find on people's stoops and at the Grace Van Vorst Church book sale, just because the scheduling works out better.

Quote:

This is silly. The article noted that the library reaches out to schools and local community centers to donate these. It also then places some books into the 'store' where they are sold for 50cents or so. Only after those steps are taken will the books be set aside as discards. The library is already a 'free table', anyone who lives in JC can borrow books for free. If you're so interested in the books - why didn't you go and borrow them from the library? There are several criteria for weeds - one of which the community satisfied by showing no interest in these books over the last 5 -10 years (no check-outs).

i agree with the sirens. i live in mcginley square and its absolutely horrible. i've even seen the ambulances blaring sirens then park casually on montgomery to go to subway or chicken delight or burger king!

Quote:

What you're saying makes sense.

One question would be whether any publishers or other organizations donate books to the library on the condition that the books not be resold.

Example: maybe libraries get discounts on some publishers, but they sign an agreement that says they can't resell the books.

Chances are that's not the case, but, if it were, maybe that would explain why the books don't go on a free book table at all.

What's the address to this gym? I've been looking for a gym.. would love to check this place out.

Anyone have the phone number for Brick Haus?

I know this is slightly O/T, but I thought West Bergen was everything to the West of Kennedy from Communipaw heading South...

FYI: I called Club H to check on whether or not there will be a pool - the answer is no.

ALB, the key here for me, and I imagine most other people annoyed by this "weeding", is that the books aren't put on the free table like at Grace Church, or even just put in a box on the street where interested parties are in a race with the garbage truck.

No, the books are first destroyed so that they are of no use to anyone, and then put out on the street so that no one but the garbage truck will take them.

Sorry -- it is next door in West Bergen

Quote:

For one hundred f%&$# time that is not greenville, you stupid moron.

Building Up, Downtown

Click Link

Suzanne DeChillo
The New York Times
July 9, 2007

ERIK A. KAISER plunges through the vine-tangled woods that surround the long abandoned Glenwood power plant on the Hudson River in Yonkers as rapidly as he talks.

Development along the Yonkers waterfront includes the Hudson Park apartments, which reach up to 9 stories; a second phase of the project will rise 12 stories.

He has big plans to convert the plant, which closed in 1964, into a glamorous contemporary art museum topped by luxury lofts, condominiums and apartments, combining what he calls ?extreme architecture and sustainability,? the likes of which have never been seen in this working-class city.

The first floor, like much of Yonkers?s once industrial waterfront, offers IMAX-like views of the Hudson River and the Palisades in New Jersey. Visible to the south on a clear morning were the George Washington Bridge, Manhattan and the Goldman Sachs tower, New Jersey?s tallest building.

Mr. Kaiser said he would preserve the handsome red-brick exterior of the power plant, while erecting a six-story glass box on top of the north wing and planting a jagged multicolored 25-story tower inside the south wing.

He vows that the $250 million project will be ?a piece of art? that will attract people from around the world. It?s heady talk in a city left for dead after the Alexander Smith carpet mills and the Otis Elevator factories closed more than a quarter century ago. Even during the real estate booms in the 1980s and 1990s, the city found it hard to scare up interest from developers or companies interested in relocation.

But Mr. Kaiser, who is based in Hoboken, where another industrial waterfront was transformed over the past 25 years into a gold coast thicket of high-rise towers, lofts, town houses and marinas, is only one of many developers now prowling the Yonkers waterfront and its sagging downtown. Whatever the fate of his proposal, projects worth $5 billion are in the pipeline in Yonkers, including as many as 17 high-rise residential towers planned for the city?s 4.5-mile-long waterfront.

?At the end of the day, you?ll look up and down the Hudson and all you?ll see are high rises,? said Louis R. Cappelli, another developer with big plans for Yonkers.

Young people and executives who have fled high-priced Manhattan for Yonkers can find apartments for half the price, with an urban ambience, waterfront views and a 20-minute train ride to Midtown. In what some residents regard as a sign of civilization akin to the day Starbucks opened in Jersey City, a chic restaurant, X20 Xaviars on the Hudson, opened last month on the Yonkers city pier, opposite the newly renovated train station.

To be sure, Yonkers is still four years or so behind New Rochelle, White Plains, Stamford, Conn., and other newly resurgent older suburbs and cities on the comeback trail. Luxury apartments are stacking up in ever taller towers in a thriving downtown White Plains, which looked like a ghost town after 5 p.m. as recently as 2001. And Stamford, where the mayor has promoted high-density residential development near the train station, is poised to become Connecticut?s largest city and a powerful financial center.

In New Jersey, the redevelopment of the factories, warehouses and rail yards that lined the Hudson County waterfront between Jersey City and Weehawken began in the 1970s. High-rise office towers started going up along the waterfront in the 1980s, slowed during a recession in the early ?90s, and then took off again a couple of years later as Manhattan surged. Now, development is seeping from the waterfront into downtown Jersey City, where residential towers are springing up. Rahway, to the south, is also getting its share of attention from developers, with projects like a 16-story hotel and luxury condominium building opposite the train station.

But it is the remarkable turnaround in Yonkers, New York?s fourth-largest city, that raises the question: Is there hope for still-down-on-their-luck cities like Paterson and Camden in New Jersey, Hempstead on Long Island and Bridgeport, Conn.?

Immigration is fueling the growth of many outlying cities and towns in the New York metropolitan region. Baby boomers are beginning to retire, and there is an increasing demand for young educated workers. Middle-age empty nesters and young adults have shown a new willingness to live in urban areas.

?We?re at a point where there are a series of demographic and economic trends that revalue the special qualities of older cities,? said Jennifer S. Vey, a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution in Washington and the author of ?Restoring Prosperity,? a report that said economic and social changes could offer renewal opportunities in many older industrial cities. ?There?s no doubt these trends are putting the wind at the back of a lot of cities, giving them opportunities to capitalize on their assets.?

Restrictions on the height of the Ritz-Carlton project in White Plains were raised three times.

James Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, agreed. ?Certainly the prospects are a lot better today than 20 years ago,? he said.

Still, daunting problems remain. Paterson has failed to find replacements for the manufacturing industries that dominated decades ago, while crime and poverty remain persistent problems, Mr. Hughes said. Camden, Trenton and Bridgeport face similar problems. On Long Island, officials governing the latticework of towns and villages zealously guard the low-scale suburban zoning, prohibiting taller residential buildings near their train stations and highways that might enliven their downtown areas.

?We would love to have what is happening in Westchester happen in our downtowns in Nassau County,? said Thomas R. Suozzi, the county executive. ?Maybe the buildings don?t have to be that tall, but we need that kind of density in select locations, near train stations for instance, in order to sustain the next generations.?

Stamford, White Plains, New Rochelle and Yonkers all benefit from their proximity to Manhattan, where the rent for prime space in Midtown has topped $100 per square foot and the average price of an apartment is more than $1.2 million.

?The cities are happening because Manhattan?s happening,? said Mr. Cappelli, who is building more than $2 billion worth of increasingly tall towers in New Rochelle, White Plains, Stamford and, soon, Yonkers. ?People are being priced out of Manhattan.?

Some real estate executives say the condominium market in Westchester is softening and a downturn in the economy could bring the boom to an end. But there is no question that there is a demand for high-end housing in downtown areas.

Politicians, planners and developers draw a distinction between White Plains and Stamford, satellite cities that have become employment centers in their own right, and New Rochelle and Yonkers, many of whose residents work elsewhere. Indeed, on a workday morning, more people today are getting off the Metro-North trains in Stamford and White Plains to go to work than are getting on the trains bound for Manhattan.

In White Plains and Stamford, there was a burst of new construction in the late 1980s, but by the early ?90s many office buildings became plagued by high vacancy rates as companies reduced workers, closed offices or moved. The downtowns were commercial districts, largely devoid of life in the evenings. In the late ?90s, workers at UBS, the Swiss financial giant in Stamford that now has 4,000 employees, often complained that aside from a Morton?s steakhouse, there was little else in the surrounding downtown area.

In recent years, Stamford?s mayor, Dannell P. Malloy, has encouraged the development of housing downtown. The city also adopted regulations in 2003 requiring developers to set rents for at least 10 percent of their units at more modest levels, for firefighters, teachers and other members of the work force.

Mr. Cappelli and a business partner, Thomas L. Rich, are about to break ground on a $165 million 34-story residential tower called Trump Parc in downtown Stamford. Mr. Cappelli is also proposing a $500 million Ritz-Carlton hotel and condominium complex. In the city?s south end, between Interstate 95 and the Long Island Sound, plans are under way for a $3.5 billion residential and retail development in a neighborhood of working-class housing, vacant factories and motorcycle shops.

?Stamford came back to life when people started living downtown again,? said Anthony E. Malkin, president of W&M Properties. ?Stamford added movie theaters, bars and restaurants and encouraged transit-oriented development. There was street life.?

The story is similar in White Plains. Mr. Cappelli said many rival developers thought he was ?insane? in 2001 when he bought a vacant department store building in the heart of downtown and began planning City Center, a retail complex with two luxury apartment towers.

?They said, ?Who would want to live in a high rise in Westchester?? ? Mr. Cappelli recalled. ?This was an absolute ghost town. Nobody wanted to be here. Now it?s become a 24-hour city.?

He said the 212 apartments were snapped up by a mix of empty nesters who lived in White Plains and executives who worked in Manhattan.

Now, Mr. Cappelli is rushing to complete a $500 million Ritz-Carlton project nearby. The hotel is flanked by two 47-story condominium towers with the blue-black glass and sharp angles of modern Manhattan skyscrapers. The city council was so eager to see downtown development that they raised the height limit for the towers three times. Mr. Cappelli said he is now getting $1,000 a square foot for apartments that would cost $2,500 in Manhattan.

But with downtown real estate booming, the city council no longer seems so eager to put the city?s fate in Mr. Cappelli?s hands. The council recently balked at granting him exclusive development rights until January to a five-acre, city-owned parcel near the train station where he has proposed the $850 million State Square project, a mix of office buildings, a garage and a firehouse. They wanted to see what other developers might offer.

There is great hope that Newark may also be on its way back. The city has been grappling with the devastating loss of industrial jobs since the end of World War II. Department stores fled long ago, and the city has been dogged by political scandal and crime.

But Newark still has all the features that made it a mighty city, including a seaport, trains to Manhattan and access to major highways. And many developers who have bought buildings downtown over the past 10 years hope the new mayor, Corey A. Booker, will succeed in reining in crime and promoting new projects.

STILL, Newark has spent a lot of money chasing what the Brookings Institution calls ?fads? ? like a minor-league baseball stadium and the soon to open $375 million Prudential Center, the arena where the New Jersey Devils hockey team will play ? rather than capitalizing on the city?s unique assets.

Yonkers is also pursuing a minor league stadium in hopes of attracting visitors downtown.

?Even with hard evidence that such projects rarely pay the expected dividends,? the report said, ?city leaders continue to pursue them.?

Although politicians and developers have talked about the redevelopment of the industrial waterfront in Yonkers for more than 40 years, it is only now starting to happen. There are plans to add 8,000 housing units over the next 10 years. Later this year, construction is expected to begin on two 25-story glass towers on the waterfront and on the $650 million Ridge Hill Village development between I-87 and the Sprain Brook Parkway.

Downtown, the first phase of River Park Center ? a combination of shops, movie theaters, parking and a ballpark ? is also moving closer to construction.

But the city was hobbled for decades by crime, poor schools, political scandals, the continuing loss of industrial jobs and a bitter, long-running desegregation battle.

Over the past 10 years, the city developed its own plans for development, used a package of tax breaks and state aid to entice developers and employers, and invested $133.5 million in projects including a new library, a refurbished pier, a municipal garage and a $13 million esplanade along the waterfront. The waterfront was rezoned for dense residential and retail development.

?It took us years to shed this image as a racist city where everything is very politicized,? said Mayor Philip A. Amicone of Yonkers. ?We had to show that government was stable and solid. We?re taking active steps to improve the downtown area and passive steps to avoid gentrification. We?ve intentionally not rezoned some neighborhoods so there?s no incentive for developers.?

Yonkers is still very much a working-class city, with aging three- and four-story apartment buildings, small houses and shops lining the steep streets that lead down to the Hudson. An estimated 70 percent of the children in the public schools live at or below the poverty line. East of the Saw Mill Parkway, the city takes on a more middle-class, suburban character.

Downtown, Kawasaki is manufacturing subway cars in an old Otis Elevator factory, and the Domino sugar plant, one of the county?s last riverfront factories, is still operating. But there are more high-tech jobs at Aureon Laboratories, a biomedical research and testing firm that opened in an old factory. Point of Purchase, which designs and manufactures marketing displays, consolidated its operations and moved from Queens to Yonkers with 1,200 engineering and production jobs. Yonkers Raceway added about 1,500 jobs last year when it built a $290 million casino with 5,500 high-tech slot machines.

Arthur Collins II, a principal at Collins Enterprises, the only developer that has actually built on the Yonkers waterfront, said it was the city?s decision to develop a master plan and spend money on the new library, garage and esplanade that prompted his company to build Hudson Park, a 266-apartment complex rising to nine stories on the waterfront, next to the train station. It took years to start construction, but the project sold out, and Mr. Collins is now building the second phase, 294 apartments in a 12-story building just to the north.

But now that Yonkers is poised to take off, there is debate over what the waterfront development should look like. Some residents and Scenic Hudson, an environmental group long active in the Hudson Valley, have criticized the 25-story towers proposed in various projects.

They say it is not just a matter of protecting the environment or the views of the working-class neighborhoods behind the proposed high-rises. Despite the esplanade, they contend, a wall of towers would convey a sense of a private enclave.

?We think it?s great that the mayor is providing strong leadership for the redevelopment of the waterfront,? said Ned Sullivan, the president of Scenic Hudson, which wants to limit the height of buildings to no more than nine stories and has recommended more affordable housing, and more restaurants, shops and activities to attract people to the waterfront.

?We just want to make sure that as the Yonkers renaissance occurs, the entire community benefits,? Mr. Sullivan said. ?We believe that the waterfront, in particular, should be a public resource. If only the wealthy people live there, then people from other economic sectors will feel it?s only for the rich.?

But Mr. Amicone, who is running for re-election, rejected the criticism. The new buildings will include affordable housing, he said. More important, he said, developers could not afford to build new projects if they were restricted to low-scale construction.

?You have to consider the cost of cleaning contaminated soil and building on piles,? Mr. Amicone said. ?There has to be enough density to make a profit.?

Peter X. Kelly, the chef and restaurateur who opened X20 Xaviars on the Hudson, is just happy to see that Yonkers is on its way back. He grew up in a large family in the William A. Schlobohm housing project in Yonkers. The opening of the restaurant created something in Yonkers that many residents had not seen before: a downtown traffic jam.

?The potential is huge, when you think about places like Brooklyn, SoHo and TriBeCa before they were developed,? Mr. Kelly said. ?This is not a destination now, but I believe we?re building a landmark restaurant that?ll have an enduring impact on the community.?

Cop injured in tussle with teen

Monday, July 09, 2007
By CHARLES HACK
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A cop was treated for a hand injury after tussling with a teen-ager during a drug arrest, police said.

Maurice Washington, 19, of Union Street in Jersey City, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, resisting arrest and drug charges, cops said.
Responding to reports of a dealer in the area, police saw what appeared to be a drug transaction between Washington and a person on a bike on Martin Luther King Drive near Oak Street on Thursday around 10:25 a.m., reports said.

When challenged by the cops, Washington threw a red-capped vial containing suspected cocaine to the ground, "stiffed armed" a cop and ran, reports said.

He was grabbed a short distance away, but continued struggling with police as they tried to handcuff him until he could be subdued, reports said.

The officer was treated at Jersey City Medical Center for an injured right hand and Washington was treated for a cut above his left eye, reports said.

In addition to the red-capped vial, cops also found another container of suspected cocaine and a bag of suspected heroin labeled "crank," reports said.

An officer later returned to the area where police had allegedly seen Washington stash a white object during the drug transaction, and there, the officer found a bundle of 11 bags of suspected heroin, reports said. Seven bags were labeled "crank," and four were labeled "big boy."

Police questioned and released the man on the bicycle, who said he was just selling cigarettes.

[quote]
Kermit42 wrote:
Haven't they heard of the Grace Church Used Book Sale?
/quote]

What absolutely kills me is going to the Grace Van Vorst Church Book Sale and seeing all sorts of wonderful books on the "free books" table.

Example: I got a rare edition of a well-known "History of Socialism," which was published around 1910, from the free table. I had to force the guy who runs the sale to take a dollar for it, just because he had put it on the free table.

If I look on various used book sites, I see some versions of the book on sale for $3 and some for $50. So, of course, at some level, the book probably is a "free book or trash truck" kind of book, but I feel when I'm saving a book like that as if I'm saving a human being. I also got a 1937 Hebrew dictionary for Polish speakers off the free table, and a copy of the "Boy Vigilantes of Belgium" boy's book, which is a book of pro-Allies propaganda published (I think) during World War I, from the free table.

So, even at that book sale, there's plenty of wonderful books destined for "pruning."

Quote:

they should also prune the trees out front

If this does close that gives yet another reason to open a narrow two lane connector road on Jersey Avenue.

Quote:

As someone with an MLS who volunteers at the circulation desk, I can say that the folks who work there know their stuff. While they may not be able to field all the questions thrown at them, they know how to get the right answers. As well, I've seen them go out of their way to cater to the diverse interests of patrons who come in, knowing trends well enough to guide them towards newly arrived books of interest.

Weeding, especially in this digital age, is a regular necessary process, kinda like pruning the branches to keep the tree healthy.

High-End Amenities, Lesser Location

The New York Times
By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
Published: July 8, 2007

THERE is no hiding the fact that TreeTop Development’s two new condominium buildings are directly across Jackson Street from this city’s public housing projects, and the developers say they are not trying to hide it.

“It’s a part of life,” said Adam Mermelstein, a principal of TreeTop, which is based in Manhattan. “People in New York live in beautiful buildings right next to housing projects and think nothing of it.”

Mr. Mermelstein and his partner, Azi Mandel, say they see Hoboken and adjacent Jersey City as being like Brooklyn, where rapid redevelopment often generates odd juxtapositions of housing types, and the character of neighborhoods may shift block by block.

“We like to fill in the gaps and work at the edges of the most desirable neighborhoods,” Mr. Mermelstein said. “What we’ve done with several projects in Brooklyn, and what we’re doing here, is to create exciting, high-quality buildings that are affordable because of being in somewhat lesser locations.”

The midrise Hoboken projects are strung along a three-block stretch of Jackson Street between Third and Sixth Streets in a neighborhood between two redevelopment areas.

The neighborhood has the highest crime rate of any in Hoboken, according to the police, and early last year, a man was shot to death after a dispute between two groups on Hoboken Housing Authority property.

Immediately north of the projects, on Jackson between Seventh and Eighth Streets, the high-end Velocity complex, a 24-hour-concierge building, is being actively marketed to “luxury buyers” — starting with an auction last month to spark sales. Velocity’s developer, the Remi Companies, pitched the auction as an attention-getting tactic, designed to recoup momentum after construction delays forced cancellation of dozens of sales contracts signed last year.

But other developers have persistently murmured that the original asking prices at the 128-unit Velocity may have been too high, given its proximity to the projects. One-bedroom units were initially priced from the low $500,000s; two-bedroom units were priced at $600,000 to $700,000, and some three-bedroom units had asking prices exceeding $900,000.

At the auction, nine one-bedroom units went for prices in the low $400,000s, but Remi cut short the proceedings after selling two two-bedroom units in the low $500,000s. The company said it had made 20 sales since the auction.

One block farther north, next to the Ninth Street light rail station, which connects to PATH trains to Manhattan, a 113-unit high-rise condo called Metrostop is starting to take shape — and is said to be 35 percent sold. Preconstruction prices for one- and two-bedroom units and duplex penthouses at the building, being developed by Metro Homes, run from the low $400,000s to more than $1 million.

TreeTop’s two, somewhat smaller, buildings, situated between Fifth and Sixth Streets on Jackson, will offer a total of 33 one- and two-bedroom condos with large, unusually shaped rooms and, in some cases, floor-to-ceiling windows, at prices from $375,000 to the high $500,000s. Eleven units have already been sold.

The TreeTop buildings are called Ariel Square and the Emsee. They are being built on the site of former eyesores — a long-vacant grocery store and an old wood-frame apartment house — and they are situated among other deteriorated buildings, some of them for sale.

The new residences are equipped with closed-circuit television monitors connected to the entry door and buzz-in service for guests.

Ariel Square, an L-shaped structure, is set at the corner of Fifth Street and Jackson; it will open for occupancy in late summer, according to Mr. Mermelstein. A veteran Hoboken architect, Dean Marchetto, who designed Metrostop and other residential structures here in the last 20 years, designed the building.

The facade is traditional — brick and concrete with bay windows — but has modern aluminum accents.

Ariel Square, with 21 units, has three residential floors over 20 enclosed parking spaces and a private gym. The building has a rear courtyard with a patio. One- and two-bedroom layouts provide 750 to 1,292 square feet of living space.

The Emsee, which also has garage parking and a courtyard, was designed by Studio One Architects of Hoboken. Its layouts provide 711 to 1,510 square feet. Most units at the Emsee have small balconies, and each top-floor unit has 224 square feet of walk-out rooftop space.

Interiors at Ariel Square and the 12-unit Emsee are modern and “cutting edge for Hoboken,” Mr. Mermelstein said, although TreeTop has employed similar designs in Brooklyn.

A model unit at Ariel Square has wraparound floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook a recently spiffed-up ball field on Housing Authority property and the brick plaza entrance to the projects, where a fountain is to be installed this summer.

The condos have bamboo hardwood floors, central air, contemporary tiled bathrooms and kitchens with stainless steel appliances, coffee-colored cabinets and white countertops made of CaesarStone, an engineered quartz composite.

The development is being marketed by the Developers Group of Brooklyn.

State may close Greenville Hospital

Community rallies to save institution


Ricardo Kaulessar
Reporter staff writer 07/07/2007

SAVE GREENVILLE HOSPITAL – Marchers come down Kennedy Boulevard in Jersey City last Saturday, June 30, protesting the pending closure of Greenville Hospital.

On the website for the LibertyHealth Systems, Greenville Hospital located at the southern end of Jersey City, is described as "a small community hospital with a big heart."

But the 100-year-old hospital's operations might end soon, as LibertyHealth Systems, the health care organization that operates it, filed with the state on June 27 to eventually close Greenville as a regular hospital.

The next day, LibertyHealth received a "certificate of need" from the state. The certificate technically allows LibertyHealth to close all regular care and offer different health services, but there are conditions they must meet first.

There actually had been talks about changing the focus of the facility for months before the June 27 filing. Since April, LibertyHealth had talked about closing the hospital's emergency room in another 12 to 18 months, and to ending all regular care in six to nine months.

But they still would like to offer in-patient behavioral and addiction services, detoxification programs, and outpatient dialysis.

State officials must now decide whether to approve such an arrangement.

In any case, the hospital staff and local officials have sought a second opinion to maintain the 100-bed hospital and its emergency room.

Outgoing State Assemblyman Louis Manzo (NJ-31st Dist.), who represents the Greenville area of the city that gives the hospital its name, asked for $10 million in the recently passed state budget to enable LibertyHealth to relocate their behavioral and addiction services from their over-crowded Jersey City Medical Center to Greenville Hospital.

Last week, Manzo could not be reached for comment on whether or not he was successful in getting that $10 million.

And there was a rally in front of the hospital on June 30, where over 200 people gathered to hear testimony from those wanting to prevent any changes to the hospital.

They included a number of city officials, including Mayor Jerramiah Healy, as well as City Council members Viola Richardson, Mary Spinello, Steven Fulop, Willie Flood, and Peter Brennan.

Dr. Muhammad Ahmad, a cardiologist at the hospital for over 25 years, said he was "very sad" to hear LibertyHealth is looking to close the hospital and bring in addiction and behavioral health services.

"It's not an ideal location for drug rehab and psych patients, because it is near a school," Ahmad said. "It should be in another location."

Financial problems
Advertisement



Stephen Kirby, acting CEO and president for LibertyHealth, said recently that about 19 percent of the patients from the Greenville area use Greenville Hospital, while 33 percent of those residents use the larger Jersey City Medical Center.

"There is declining volume for Greenville [Hospital] as people are bypassing it for the Medical Center," Kirby said.

Kirby also pointed out that the Medical Center is already offering the same medical services as Greenville, and that LibertyHealth could save at least $3 million a year by eliminating "duplication of services."

LibertyHealth owns Greenville Hospital, Jersey City Medical Center, and the Meadowlands Hospital in Secaucus.

"Health care is fraught with duplication, which is not good for any hospital's financial well-being," Kirby said.

Several hospitals in Hudson County have closed facilities or had severe financial problems in the last few years, due to a lack of adequate reimbursement from insurance companies and from the state's Charity Care funds for the poor. Hospitals are required to offer emergency care to injured people whether they are insured or not.

In addition, hospitals have to compete with private medical facilities that specialize in services like ultrasound and can make a profit. Thus, hospitals have to change and specialize in order to stay solvent.

Last year, the city of Hoboken was forced to take over their St. Mary Hospital rather than having it close due to financial problems. In Jersey City, St. Francis Hospital closed in the last three years. The location is now being turned into condos.

People walk to it


Minnie Torres is one of the organizers of the June 30 rally. Torres, a resident of the Greenville section of the city, works with senior citizens as a volunteer with Jersey City-based Hudson Hospice Volunteers, Inc.

Many of Torres' clients are or have been patients of Greenville Hospital, and they live within close proximity to the hospital.

Before the rally, Torres spoke of the impact the closing of the hospital would have upon not just the seniors, but also others in the community.

"There are many people who come to this hospital who walk or take a short trip on a bus," Torres said. "What happens if they have to wait on an ambulance to go to the Medical Center or Bayonne Hospital?"

Torres continued, "God forbid there is 9/11-type emergency situation in this area and Greenville Hospital is closed." Torres plans to speak at the next City Council meeting on July 18.

Bayonne fan in a wheelchair


Among the marchers in the rally was Thomas Jasper, a resident of Second Street in Bayonne. He is confined to his motorized wheelchair due to severe back pain. Jasper said Greenville Hospital is the "only one he goes to" for the past 15 years, as opposed to Bayonne Medical Center on 29th Street in Bayonne.

"They have better service and more respect for the patients," said Jasper.

Dr. Ahmad said LibertyHealth was not addressing the problem properly, and should be looking at issues such as reimbursement from insurance companies and the amount of Charity Care expenses incurred by LibertyHealth.

Hospital on short list


But the cost-cutting is in line with what LibertyHealth has been pursuing since September after a report commissioned by the former president of LibertyHealth, Dr. Jonathan Metsch, called for cutting staff and various services at the Medical Center, as well as attracting more private care physicians and a better-paying clientele. After the report came out, Metsch resigned.

The report was requested by state health officials after Metsch asked for $3 million more in aid per month in order for that hospital to continue to operate.

Kirby pointed out Greenville Hospital has been on a "short list" of hospitals that the state has been looking to close for some time.

He also cited a recently released interim report by Gov. Jon Corzine's Commission on Rationalizing New Jersey's Health Care Resources. The commission was appointed in October to study the financial viability of hospitals across the state and whether or not they should receive state aid. The final report, which does not name any hospitals specifically, will be issued in December.

Plan to save it


At the rally, longtime Greenville Hospital staffer Dr. Medhat El-Amir said he and his fellow doctors are working on a plan to save Greenville Hospital for closing acute care, but would not reveal any details.

Mayor Healy said he would continue discussions with LibertyHealth in the future.

John McKeegan, spokesperson for LibertyHealth, said there will have to be public hearings on their future plans.

Also, they have to wait for the state to commit $10 million for capital improvements to the hospital to accommodate any new services.

Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com

Books suitable for 'weeding'

Resident annoyed that library threw out books

Ricardo Kaulessar
Reporter staff writer 07/07/2007

ASKING QUESTIONS – Downtown Jersey City resident Juan Albornoz (right) speaks to Jersey City Free Public Library Director Priscilla Gardner (left) about the library’s policy of “weeding” books from their collection.

Downtown resident Juan Albornoz describes himself as a "pain in the butt," and is well-known to many city officials for being, as one unnamed council aide said, a "person with an opinion on everything."

So Albornoz did not shy away from expressing his opinion to the council at their last meeting on June 27 regarding some books from the Jersey City Free Public Library he found in a hamper earlier this month on Mercer Street, outside the library's Main Branch.

Albornoz was shocked to have found copies of "major books in literature," he said, with their cover torn off and pages gutted - including titles by James Jones, William Kennedy, Joseph Heller, John Irving, R.K. Narayan, Muriel Spark, and P.D. James.

"I let them know that major works of American literature are being destroyed," Albornoz said. "The bottom line is what kind of city is this that would allow this destruction."

His comments to the City Council found their way to Library Director Priscilla Gardner, and she summoned him the next day to a meeting at the main library.

There, Gardner and Assistant Library Director Sonia Araujo defended the dumping of the books in the hamper as following a library policy known as "weeding," where books too damaged or too old to keep are taken off library shelves to make room for newer books.

But Gardner also took Albornoz to task for not coming to her directly to make his concerns known.

He had said that he was bringing attention to this issue as "a friend of the library," but Gardner responded, "If you're a friend of the library, then you should have come directly to me instead of going in front of the City Council."

Going by the book, or seeking cover?

Originally intended as a sit-down interview between Gardner, Araujo, this reporter, and Rudy Pleasant, manager of capital projects for the library, the meeting actually became more of a roundtable that also included Albornoz, four other library staff members, and local architect Helena Ruman.

Araujo explained that "weeding" is done for various reasons such as lack of space on shelves, having too many copies of a title, infrequent borrowing of the book, and damage to a book.

"We don't do this on a regular basis, although we try to keep our collection current," Araujo said, "but its done once or twice a year."

Records provided by the Jersey City Free Public Library show that of the more than 450,000 books in all 12 of the library's branches in 2006, 10,376 books were weeded that year, or a little over 2 percent of their collection.

Judith Frank, responsible for ordering books for the library, said there are different types of books that have to be weeded it out every few years, such as travel books and science books that has outdated information.

She also said that the library tries to order a new copy or copies "if there is a demand for the book."

But Araujo added that if a book has "significant literary value" and has been weeded out, then they will replace the book.

Gardner pointed out that many of the books that were in the hamper may have also been donations to the library for its used bookstore in the main branch.

Those answers, however, was not satisfactory for Albornoz.

Questions of his own


Albornoz wanted to know why good books are being torn apart, which prevents the public from taking them if they find them in the hamper.

Araujo said that before a book is weeded out, it is put on sale in the used book store, or offered to schools, community centers, and used book stores.

Albornoz also wanted to know why they are doing the weeding when he sees many empty shelves in the library.

"The lending section, which is like your main bank account, is half-empty," Albornoz said.

Araujo said they are shifting that section because of new classifications for biographies, which are in that section along with fiction books.

Albornoz recommended a "shakeup" in terms of how the weeding is being done. In particular, he took issue with the ridding of books that are borrowed infrequently.

"If somehow someone here detects a book hasn't been checked out in x number of months or years, it is [seen as] garbage," Albornoz said, "and that is not the way to maintain a heritage."

After the meeting

When the discussion ended, Gardner and Araujo took Albornoz on a tour of the lending section on the second floor of the Main Library, where they pointed out their re-shelving efforts. They also showed him the old stacks area of the library, which once held many of the books that were weeded from the library's collection. The stacks are being rebuilt as the part of the library's renovation project of the Main Library.

Later that day, Gardner said she appreciated Albornoz's input and has taken some of his suggestions, such as creating a bookmark for library patrons that reminds them to donate to the Public Library.

"Like I told him, 'It was good that he came in,' but he won't have to do it again," Gardner said.

Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com

Quote:

http://www.wardrive.net/wardriving/faq

Quote:

Ergo, why I said:
Quote:

What if I used the DJCW logo for everything that offended me and passed it around the neighborhood without consent? That sandwich at the so-so deli was disgusting, we should boycott it. That douch parking his giant SUV takes up too much space, lets castrate him. No, no...there are too many kids hanging out in front of my building. Throw them all in jail. I don't care I live by a school! So what it was built 100 years before I moved here from Michigan or Ohio....It offends me and only me. ME ME ME!!!!

umestazzuele - The standard in the HASL league is really not that high, I wouldn't be concerned.

They have an Open league which is co-ed and takes people of all abilities, perhaps the game you saw was in the "premier" HASL league, which is for "males with advanced soccer skills".

Join the open league, if you have ever played before, there will very likely be worse players than yourself in your team.

Robin.

this is lame.

sounds good to me!

Hi.
Please Join the North New Jersey CO-ED Soccer PickUp Group. We play in LSP On Sundays @ 4:30pm

http://pickupsoccer.meetup.com/136/

When I had my cockatiel, and lived in the city, I took him to Dr. Haddock. She was very good.

A couple of years ago, I took him to the vet on Washington St. in Hoboken and they mis-diagnosed him. Would not recommend them.

i dunno...seems like the ambulances and police sirens are far and away the loudest noise-makers in my area (VVP). i heard yesterday that Hoboken has started to enforce a regulation prohibiting ambulances from using their sirens within 2 blocks of a hospital--seems like a great idea to me (barring emergencies, naturally. my gut tells me that most of the time these sirens are used w/o immediate need but for the driver's convenience).