Monday medley: saving the HUMC, No Reform "push poll"

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WHO "SAVED" HUMC?

Reform peeps- all of you, watch that video. 

GA's pick- then and now, for the single person most responsible for saving the hospital is the indefatigable Toni Tomarazzo, Chairwoman of the Hoboken Municipal Hospital Authority (HUMC).  GA spoke to Toni during the hospital sale process; she was literally working 60-70 hours a week- between her fulltime job and steering the process from RFPs through to the sale.  GA wrote back then:

Toni Tomarazzo, leader of the group Mayor Zimmer called the "Heroes of Hoboken", devoted countless hours to the rescue of Hoboken's HUMC from the clutches of elected politicians "in pursuit of their own personal agendas".  These selfish partisans trashed the honest, hard work of Toni and her peers on the Hospital Authority in a  shameful campaign of emails, mailers and rumors planted in the press propagating false allegations about the HMHA's motives and morals; the attacks were led by 2nd Ward City Councilman Beth Mason.

But others were instrumental in saving our hospital, too; it was a true team effort.

Mayor Zimmer, was instrumental- recall how Beth Mason's toady improperly obtained "60,000 emails between Zimmer/HMHA and the buyer" during the hospital sale in order to destroy it (and the city's bond rating.)  Remember, the city's bond rating was perched on the brink of junk bond status if Hoboken's $52M bond debt were not relieved by the hospital sale, forcing Hoboken into bankruptcy.  That is what the Dark Side wanted.

The  all-volunteer HMHA members, who worked tirelessly and  under vicious attack by Beth Mason minions, of course were instrumental to the hospital sale.

So was the Reform City Council: Cunningham, Bhalla, Giattino, Mello and Marsh. Even Flipper Occhipinti, whose 6th vote on October 30, 2011 allowed the sale to go through, was instrumental.

Hence, the "saving" of the HUMC was a Reform achievement, a feather in everyone's cap.  Some feathers are bigger than other feathers.  But still, the process of turning a public asset into private hands was complex, and everyone was instrumental at the right time.

GA will show you an example of both Hoboken City Council President Ravi Bhalla and 6th Ward Councilwoman Jen Giattino's participation in saving the HUMC.  

On the evening of July 21, 2011, both Councilperson's testified at a hearing before the New Jersey State Planning Board, asking the Board to approve the hospital's Certificate of Need application. The approval was required  in order to transfer of ownership of  the Hoboken Municipal Hospital Authority to HUMC Holdco LLC.  Without it, the hospital sale would have tanked. 

Others who testified that night include Mayor Zimmer, Steve Rofsky, Donna Antonucci, Allen Kratz, and Freeholder Anthony Romano.

GA will republish to testimony of the 2017 mayoral candidates, in the order they testified.

Folks can judge for themselves the substance and clarity that our three 2017 mayoral candidates argued to save the hospital at this critical state hearing  in 2011.

RAVI BHALLA TESTIMONY 

MR. BHALLA: Good evening. My name is Ravi Bhalla. First name is R-A-V-I. Last name is spelled B-H-A-L-L-A. I'm a Council Member at Large and the President of the Hoboken City Council. At first, I want to thank you all for your time and having us here today. I'm going to be very brief. Just to give you a sense of what this hospital means to us, it used to be named St. Mary's. Today it's called Hoboken University Medical Center, but it's a part of our community. It's an institution that almost every Hoboken resident uses when they're in a time of need. We cannot, as a community, survive without this hospital being in place from a health care perspective. We cannot survive from a governmental perspective without this hospital. The city has carried a $52 million debt obligation and if this hospital sale does not go through, the hospital will close. There's no other option that's on the table. This sale is critical. This sale is our only option.  You have, you know, Mr. Conroy and Miss Ainora, you have these shiny brochures that have been submitted to members of the public, trying to suggest that we have time to renegotiate a new sale or that there's other buyers. That ship has sailed. That ship has sailed a long time  ago. We had a stakeholders meeting with -- excuse me, a stakeholder committee with a diverse cross-section of members of the community with hours and hours of input, a very diverse group of  bidders, a very competitive process. A very strong perspective buyer was identified and a process of negotiation has been completed. Now we're at the juncture where a decision has to be made, and I strongly, strongly urge you to recommend to the Commissioner that this Certificate of Need be issued. If you don't do it, it's gonna' have an impact on the taxpayers of this town and on the health care needs of this community, so I respectfully thank you for your time and strongly urge you to recommend that a Certificate of Need be issued to the Commissioner. Thank you.

JEN GIATTINO TESTIMONY

MS. GIATTINO: Hello. My name is Jen Giattino, J-E-N, G-I-A-T-T-I-N-O, and I am here to show my support for the sale of the hospital. I do not think it’s fair for the taxpayers of Hoboken to have this huge financial liability hanging over their head. This hospital has a very special place in my heart. I delivered two of my children here and the doctors were wonderful. The staff was wonderful and the nurses are wonderful. I very much appreciate the fact that both my pediatricians and my personal doctor are affiliated with this hospital.  That all being said, I want to show  my support once again for the sale of this  hospital. Thank you.

ANTHONY ROMANO TESTIMONY

FREEHOLDER ROMANO: Yes. Good evening, one and all. I hear so many good things being said here, but my concern -- since there is a time limit I'll focus on a few issues.  Number one, most importantly, we  need a hospital here in Hoboken. We need a full separate operating hospital as seen from, going back many years when it was St. Mary's to the present, when it served during 9/11 for the bringing of victims and injured police, fire and other emergency people here to be treated. The nurses and the staff in this hospital have taken a pay hit. We need to preserve their jobs. I say this not only as the County Representative, but as a Police Captain that has dealt with some of the finest staff, medical, clerk and otherwise in this state and we hope that their jobs are not in jeopardy. We ask that you try to do the best you can to keep all these positions. Another concern is the coverage. Obviously the Horizon Blue Cross and the services that, that we, as municipal workers, employees of the hospital, Board of Education, Housing Authority, Stevens, we are all worried that they're not going to be honored. That's another issue we hope will be negotiated. I was talking to Mickey McCabe and I hope Mickey's going to step up and help our ambulance core. We need the help.  I'm asking, I'm actually begging and hoping that you'll consider, when you're going to decide to terminate positions, what these people have sacrificed here that work in this facility. The doctors, the nurses have fought to 24 keep this hospital going. They have sacrificed a lot and we hope that you will take this into consideration. It's a very important -- it's an artery. I refer a lot of times to St. Mary's for emotional reasons, HUMC or HUMC, whatever you want to call it, as the key to this region, not just as an emergency care facility, but as a full operating hospital, with many young people that have decided to have their babies in our fine. Labor and Delivery section of the hospital, so again, I ask on behalf of all the people that -- obviously we know that this is the last formality. I know we at the county level were not involved in the ongoing process, but we hear different things and we hope we can all work together. It's beheld on you all to hopefully work with all of us at all levels of government. We look forward to trying to alleviate this situation. We all hope that we can work together. I could be contacted any time, day or night, if anything I could ever do. Good luck. Thank you

Stick's pretty good, huh?  Maybe we should get used to calling him Mayor Romano?

 BHALLA INVITED OTHER REFORM TEAM TO JOIN POLL 

The only reason GA brings this up this topic is to offset a burst of false accusations about a Bhalla "push-poll" disseminated online this weekend.  GA read the hyperventilating, alarmist rhetoric of a "push poll... targeting Jen" and feared a Swibinski-esque dirty trick.

I reached out to Bhalla on who was doing a push-poll. He said,  "I don't do push polls. It's a slimy and ineffective campaign tactic. And an insult to the intelligence of our residents."

As it turned out, no one was push-polling.

For peeps who may not understand what a "push poll" is, push polls are not 'real' polls.  They do not serve to measure public opinion or gather data. Push polls are generally used as a smear tactic to sway voters with negative/ false information about a particular candidate; they can be very effective. A famous example is the push-poll conducted against GOP Presidential Primary candidate John McCain in South Carolina. In 2000, John McCain was favored to win South Carolina, which would likely have thwarted the presidential aspirations of George W. Bush.  Bush's evil brain, Karl Rove, killed McCain's nomination with a push poll.

"Rove invented a uniquely injurious fiction for his operatives to circulate via a phony poll. Voters were asked, "Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain…if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?" This was no random slur. McCain was at the time campaigning with his dark-skinned daughter, Bridget, adopted from Bangladesh."

Enough said?  That is a push poll.  The New York Times' "What is a Push Poll?" explains push-polling pretty well, and the difference between push-polling and conventional positive/negative message polling .

Hence, this weekend's paranoid apoplexy over conventional opinion/message polling- a poll testing positive and negative messaging about Bhalla, at best shows a misunderstanding of political polling. At worst, it was a deliberate smear.  Let's not play that way, let's save it for the Dark Side. 

To wrap up on a positive note, after Reform 'split' into two camps, Ravi Bhalla invited Peter Cunningham to submit poll questions.  You heard that right.  Bhalla extended the offer to the other Reform campaign to join the poll. The invitation to join the poll was a kind gesture to the opposing Reform camp who appears to be behind in fundraising.  Polls are not cheap. More importantly, this was a good faith offer to share data- helpful to all of Reform to see the strengths and weaknesses of each respective candidate.

Bhalla's offer was not rebuffed.  Nor did the campaign submit poll questions. GA contacted  Peter Cunningham, he chose  not to comment.