Delivered to 15,000 Plainfield "doorsteps" Monday, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Jerry Green: Hold off on Solaris bonds



Assemblyman Jerry Green (D-22)

According to a page one story in today's Courier (see here), Plainfield Assemblyman Jerry Green wants the state to hold off on funding Solaris' planned expansion of JFK through publicly issued bonds until 'specific grievances' are addressed.

Some serious questions are raised ... and ducked.

More important that fussing over details which occupy the Assemblyman's mind (sort of like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic), the looming question lies elsehwere.

If what Solaris is asking for is similar to the bailout the state gave St. Michael's Hospital in Newark (and which is really predicated on an expected change in healthcare policies AND funding with a new administration in Washington next year), the ONLY real question is: Why didn't Assemblyman Green press for such a bailout for Muhlenberg when there was time?

A sweetheart deal like that would certainly have given Muhlenberg a much-needed breather and set the stage for its continued existence as the community's historic acute-care hospital.

But that wasn't a scenario that Solaris wanted.

So, Muhlenberg gets the axe and JFK gets the sweetheart deal.

All of which Assemblyman Green must have been well aware of as the bailout legislation was being crafted by his colleagues Sen. Ray Lesniak and Assemblymen Neil Cohen and Joe Cryan.

When my father married his second wife, she brought to the new home her little Pekingese. A thoroughly unpleasant little character that yapped constantly and nipped at everyone's toes, but was absolutely ineffectual as a guard against any threats or intruders.

How different from the farm up the road a piece, whose owners trained Dobermans as SERIOUS guard dogs.







View today's CLIPS here. Not getting your own CLIPS email daily? Click here to subscribe.

0 comments: